PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF DIFFERENT CONCENTRATED PHOTOVOLTAIC (CPV) FRESNEL LENS-BASED SYSTEMS

Abstract

The CPV System is a best way to minimize the cost of PV technology. In these Systems, savings are attained due to the decrease of the area of the expensive PV cell. Light intensity is increased on the device through less expensive optical elements. The Concentrated Photovoltaic (CPV) unit is typically based on the use of Fresnel Lens (FL) as a Primary Optical Element (POE), refractive Secondary Optical Element (SOE), and Multi-Junction Solar Cell (MJSC). In this work, a detailed optical modeling is applied to analyze the performance of four FL based CPV units equipped with different refractive SOEs. The SOEs which have been used for simulating the CPV units are Refractive Truncated Pyramid (RTP), Dielectric Cross Compound Parabolic Concentrator (DCCPC), Trumpet and Spherical Dome. The SOE is used in CPV Systems with FL to increase the optical System efficiency by catching refracted light which is missed by the receiver, better the tracking tolerance (acceptance angle) and enhance the flux uniformity on the MJSC. Several SOE under the same FL are designed, analyzed and compared based on their optical performances, manufacturability and cost.