Thermal management of concentrator photovoltaics

Photovoltaic Concentrator systems, which increase the solar radiation intensity on the photovoltaic cells, may reduce the system cost, if the cost of the concentrator is less than the photovoltaic material displaced. An Asymmetric Compound Parabolic Photovoltaic Concentrator (ACPPVC) for building façade integration with a solar concentration ratio of 2.0 has been designed, fabricated and experimentally characterised. The truncated ACPPVC has acceptance half angles of 0° and 55° and an absorber width of 125mm. Phase Change Materials (PCM) have been integrated to the rear of the PV panel to moderate the temperature rise of the PV and maintain good solar-electrical conversion efficiency. The thermal behaviour of a Fresnel lens PV Concentrator (FPVC) has also been studied in this work. A two-dimensional ray trace technique has been used to predict the optical performance and the angular acceptance of the ACPPVC system. The predicted highest optical efficiency was 88.67% for the ACPPVC-55 system. Extensive indoor experimental characterisation of a number of PV systems was undertaken for a range of incident solar radiation intensities using a highly collimated solar simulator developed specifically for this project. Experimental results showed that the electrical output from the ACPPVC-55 was approximately 1.8 of that of a non-concentrating PV system with similar solar cells area. The electrical conversion efficiency for the ACPPVC-55 system was further increased, when RT27 PCM was incorporated to its rear.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceUniversity of Warwick (UoW)GBUnited Kingdo