Free-form optics for Fresnel-lens-based photovoltaic concentrators

Miñano, Juan C.; Benı́tez, Pablo; Zamora, Pablo; Buljan, Marina; Mohedano, Rubén; Santamaría, Asunción

doi:10.1364/oe.21.00a494

Cited by 65 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…They are used in CPV systems to improve the irradiance uniformity of the systems. In each designed CPV unit, a plano-concave lens is chosen as the SOE to improve the irradiance uniformity since plano-concave lenses are very common products in the market and have a low cost compared to other sophisticated SOE types, such as Köhler integration-based SOEs [19][20][21] and others [23]. The design of the CPV unit is shown in Figure 3.…”

Section: Improving Irradiance Uniformitymentioning

confidence: 99%

A Novel Concentrator Photovoltaic (CPV) System with the Improvement of Irradiance Uniformity and the Capturing of Diffuse Solar Radiation

Tien

Shin

2016

Applied Sciences

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This paper proposes a novel concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) system with improved irradiation uniformity and system efficiency. CPV technology is very promising its for highly efficient solar energy conversion. A conventional CPV system usually uses only one optical component, such as a refractive Fresnel lens or a reflective parabolic dish, to collect and concentrate solar radiation on the solar cell surface. Such a system creates strongly non-uniform irradiation distribution on the solar cell, which tends to cause hot spots, current mismatch, and degrades the overall efficiency of the system. Additionally, a high-concentration CPV system is unable to collect diffuse solar radiation. In this paper, we propose a novel CPV system with improved irradiation uniformity and collection of diffuse solar radiation. The proposed system uses a Fresnel lens as a primary optical element (POE) to concentrate and focus the sunlight and a plano-concave lens as a secondary optical element (SOE) to uniformly distribute the sunlight over the surface of multi-junction (MJ) solar cells. By using the SOE, the irradiance uniformity is significantly improved in the system. Additionally, the proposed system also captures diffuse solar radiation by using an additional low-cost solar cell surrounding MJ cells. In our system, incident direct solar radiation is captured by MJ solar cells, whereas incident diffuse solar radiation is captured by the low-cost solar cell. Simulation models were developed using a commercial optical simulation tool (LightTools™). The irradiance uniformity and efficiency of the proposed CPV system were analyzed, evaluated, and compared with those of conventional CPV systems. The analyzed and simulated results show that the CPV system significantly improves the irradiance uniformity as well as the system efficiency compared to the conventional CPV systems. Numerically, for our simulation models, the designed CPV with the SOE and low-cost cell provided an optical power ratio increase of about 17.12% compared to the conventional CPV without the low-cost cell, and about 10.26% compared to the conventional CPV without using both the SOE and additional low-cost cell.

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Section: Improving Irradiance Uniformitymentioning

confidence: 99%

A Novel Concentrator Photovoltaic (CPV) System with the Improvement of Irradiance Uniformity and the Capturing of Diffuse Solar Radiation

Tien

Shin

2016

Applied Sciences

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“…Technologies can be so designed for solar thermal applications such that the primary optical element will be the Fresnel lens itself [8].…”

Section: Advantages Of Using Fresnel Lensesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cheaper and smaller water heaters for domestic purposes can be designed where electricity is scarce in developing and underdeveloped countries. Advanced technologies of manufacturing Fresnel lens like the FK concentrator and the F-RXI concentrator [8] can be used for industrial and power plant sectors coupled with solar thermal systems.…”

Section: Review Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Solar Geyser Using Spot Fresnel Lens

Rajkrishna¹

2016

J Fundam Renewable Energy Appl

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Fresnel lens based concentrating devices are not only gaining scope in the Photovoltaic industry, but also in solar thermal based industries. Fresnel lens is an optic device which concentrates the incoming light onto a spot or onto a line. This means that the temperature at that point will be significantly high. Utilizing this temperature for solar thermal applications will definitely be helpful for solar thermal power plants as the water can directly be converted into steam. This paper discusses about the various applications of Fresnel lens and how advantageous it can be to be utilized in solar thermal applications. Also better improvement on the collector design is projected that shows improvement in the overall performance of the system.

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“…The basic idea of this concept is simple. The use of an inexpensive optical element such as Fresnel lens [11] or parabolic mirror [12] to concentrate sunlight onto very small area allowing the use of much less expensive solar cells materials.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optical and thermal simulation for wide acceptance angle CPV module

Ahmad

Ota²,

Araki³

et al. 2017

AIP Conference Proceedings

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Corresponding author: nc13005@student.miyazaki-u.ac.jpAbstract. Concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) technology has the potential to decrease the cost of systems in the near future by using less expensive optical elements in the system which replace the receiving surface aperture and concentrate the sunlight onto small solar cells. One of the main concerns of CPV is the need for high precision tracking system and the relation to the acceptance angle. In this paper, we proposed a CPV module with concentration ratio larger than 100 times and wide acceptance angle. An optical simulation for the module with S-TIM2 glass as a lens material was conducted to estimate the optical performance of the module. Thermal and electrical simulation was also conducted using COMSOL Multiphysics and SPICE respectively to evaluate the working temperature and electrical characteristics of the multijunction solar cell under concentration conditions.

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Free-form optics for Fresnel-lens-based photovoltaic concentrators

Cited by 65 publications

References 15 publications

A Novel Concentrator Photovoltaic (CPV) System with the Improvement of Irradiance Uniformity and the Capturing of Diffuse Solar Radiation

A Novel Concentrator Photovoltaic (CPV) System with the Improvement of Irradiance Uniformity and the Capturing of Diffuse Solar Radiation

Solar Geyser Using Spot Fresnel Lens

Optical and thermal simulation for wide acceptance angle CPV module

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