Conjugate refractive–reflective based building integrated photovoltaic system

Baig, Hasan; Chemisana, Daniel; Sundaram, Senthilarasu; Mallick, Tapas

Abstract

Building Integrated Concentrating Photovoltaic (BICPV) systems make use of optical elements to concentrate the incoming solar radiation on small-sized solar cells with the aim of integrating PV technology into the building. We present a novel conjugate system designed to utilize the merits of both reflective and refractive optics. The optical geometry under study is a dielectric based three-dimensional cross compound parabolic concentrator (3DCCPC) enveloped by a reflective geometry of similar shape whilst maintaining an air gap between them. Monte Carlo ray-trace simulations are used to model and optimize the system configuration. The theoretical analysis shows that the optical performance of the system can be improved by 11% whilst maintaining an air gap of 0.1 mm between the reflective and the refractive surfaces. Experiments are carried out by making a prototype of the proposed system to evaluate the proof of concept. A maximum power ratio of 2.76 was found under standard testing conditions at an incidence angle of 10°. Results show that the average power output from the proposed system increases by 5.46% compared to its predecessor.

Citation

Baig, H., Chemisana, D., Sundaram, S., & Mallick, T. (2018). Conjugate refractive–reflective based building integrated photovoltaic system. Materials Letters, 228, 25-28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matlet.2018.05.117

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 27, 2018
• Online Publication Date: May 29, 2018
• Publication Date: Oct 1, 2018
• Deposit Date: Mar 13, 2023
• Print ISSN: 0167-577X
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 228
• Pages: 25-28
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matlet.2018.05.117
• Keywords: Non-imaging optics, Solar, Concentrator, Light trapping, Conjugate optics