Yunyun Wang

Improving angular acceptance of stationary low-concentration photovoltaic compound parabolic concentrators using acrylic lens-walled structure

Low-concentration photovoltaic compound parabolic concentrators (PV-CPC) are a significant addition of solar cell application, especially in Building Integrated Photovoltaics, because it does not need a tracking system and can be installed in a stationary condition. However, higher concentrations correspond with the smaller half acceptance angle, which is a limitation but can be improved by a lens-walled structure. In this paper, to validate the rationale of this structure, a low-concentration PV-CPC using an acrylic lens-walled structure module was designed and fabricated with low-cost materials. The corresponding simulation was also performed with different materials to determine whether the factor that the truncation had a significant effect. The observed outcome implied that the low-concentration PV-CPC using an acrylic lens-walled structure has a larger half acceptance angle than the mirror CPC, and that a maximum optical efficiency of more than 80% can be achieved using Schott BK glass as the lens w...