Equivalent circuit models for triple-junction concentrator solar cells

Segev, Gideon; Mittelman, Gur; Kribus, Abraham

doi:10.1016/j.solmat.2011.10.013

Cited by 110 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The recommended operating temperature varies for different manufacturers; Spectrolab Inc. suggests a maximum operating cell temperature of 100°C (Spectrolab, 2009b), Azurspace GmbH 110°C for their latest product 3C42A (Azurspace, 2014) and 150°C for the old product 3C40A (Azurspace, 2010) while Sharp data are given for up to 120°C (Segev et al, 2012). Reliability analysis on 3J solar cells have shown that, at operating conditions of 820Â and 80°C, the warranty time was found to be 113 years; at 100°C however, the warranty time was reduced to 7 years (Espinet-González et al, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electrical-thermal analysis of III–V triple-junction solar cells under variable spectra and ambient temperatures

2015

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The influence of the incident spectral irradiance on the electrical and thermal behaviour of triple-junction solar cells has been investigated. A spectral dependent electrical model has been developed to calculate the electric characteristics and quantify the heat power of a multijunction solar cell. A three-dimensional finite element analysis is also used to predict the solar cell's operating temperature and cooling requirements for a range of ambient temperatures. The combination of these models improves the prediction accuracy of the electrical and thermal behaviour of triple-junction solar cells. The convective heat transfer coefficient between the back-plate and ambient air was found to be the significant parameter in achieving high electrical efficiency. These data are important for the electrical and thermal optimisation of concentrating photovoltaic systems under real conditions. The objective of this work is to quantify the temperature and cooling requirements of multijunction solar cells under variable solar spectra and ambient temperatures. It is shown that single cell configurations with a solar cell area of 1 cm 2 can be cooled passively for concentration ratios of up to 500Â with a heat sink thermal resistance below 1.63 K/W, however for high ambient temperatures (greater than 40°C), a thermal resistance less than 1.4 K/W is needed to keep the solar cell operating within safe operating conditions.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electrical-thermal analysis of III–V triple-junction solar cells under variable spectra and ambient temperatures

2015

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“…Reported ideality factors for TJ solar cells are usually in the range 3-4 for concentration levels from 1× to 1000× [58]. The ideality factor is influenced by the recombination mechanism and the concentration ratio (which determines the injection level) [59]. The dominant recombination mechanism for an MJ solar cell has been shown to be different at low and high irradiance levels.…”

Section: Influence Of Optical Concentrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Each junction can be represented by an equivalent circuit model. The most frequently used models are the single exponential model (SEM) and the double exponential model (DEM) [59]. Figure 6 shows an example of the equivalent circuits of a TJ solar cell by connecting the three subcells circuits in series.…”

Section: Influence Of Optical Concentrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some investigators have proposed different methods to obtain the parameters of the subcells by making different assumptions and simplifications. Examples of extraction methods based on the SEM scheme can be found in the literature [46,55,59,[66][67][68] as can results from those based on the DEM scheme [59,[69][70][71]. It is important to note that these studies usually estimate the parameters at a particular set of operating conditions.…”

Section: Influence Of Optical Concentrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Multijunction Concentrator Solar Cells: Analysis and Fundamentals

Férnández

García‐Loureiro

Smestad

2015

High Concentrator Photovoltaics

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Multijunction (MJ) concentrator solar cells are primarily constructed of III-V semiconductor materials. The high solar-conversion efficiencies of these devices are dependent on precise control of growth conditions using one of several techniques such as molecular beam epitaxy, metal organic chemical vapour, or metal organic vapour-phase epitaxy deposition. The use of several junctions in an MJ tandem stack allows these devices to achieve efficiencies that are not possible for single-junction devices. Their behaviour is consequently complex, but it can be understood through an examination of the external quantum efficiency and the temperature dependence of each cell in the stack. This chapter lays out a systematic approach for understanding the spectral and temperature dependence of the overall MJ device by way of consideration of its component subcells. The efficiency of the cell as a function of temperature and concentration is described for both lattice-matched and metamorphic triple-junction (TJ) solar cells. The electrical characteristics and current-voltage curves are described from these considerations, and the performance of MJ solar cells under real operating conditions are then presented by considering a term describing the overall thermal factor and another term for the spectral factor. These terms can be understood from the background presented in the previous sections. Finally, the power output for the complete cell incorporated into a Fresnel lens based high-concentration photovoltaic system is presented for a particular geographic location using meteorological data.

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“…However, no work was carried out for further research. In this paper, we used the method of ray-tracing simulation [11] and the solar cell circuit network model [12][13][14][15][16][17][18] to analyze the illumination distribution and the power performance of the solar cell at different positions of the optical axis. The illumination distribution of different spectral bands and the power output performance of triple-junction solar cells were obtained.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The III–V Triple-Junction Solar Cell Characteristics and Optimization with a Fresnel Lens Concentrator

Guo

Qi-Bing

Shu

et al. 2018

International Journal of Photoenergy

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At present, the Fresnel lens are commonly used as the condenser in high-concentrating photovoltaic (HCPV) modules. It is ideally believed that the output power of a III-V triple-junction solar cell which is placed on the focal plane of a Fresnel lens is the largest, because the intensity of the sunlight on the focal plane is the largest. Actually, according to our work, the dispersion of sunlight through a Fresnel lens and the nonparallelism and divergence of the incident light will lead to changes in the spectrum and the homogeneity of illumination, and cause a drop of the solar cell output. In this paper, the influence of the dispersion and nonparallel incidence of the light on the output of a triple-junction solar cell at different positions near the focal plane were theoretically studied, combined with the light-tracing simulation method and triple-junction solar cell circuit network model. The results show that the III-V triple-junction solar cell has the highest output power in both sides of the focal plane positions. The output power can be increased by about 15% after being optimized. The simulation results were verified by the experiments.

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Equivalent circuit models for triple-junction concentrator solar cells

Cited by 110 publications

References 17 publications

Electrical-thermal analysis of III–V triple-junction solar cells under variable spectra and ambient temperatures

Electrical-thermal analysis of III–V triple-junction solar cells under variable spectra and ambient temperatures

Multijunction Concentrator Solar Cells: Analysis and Fundamentals

The III–V Triple-Junction Solar Cell Characteristics and Optimization with a Fresnel Lens Concentrator

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