Effect of thermal load on performance parameters of solar concentrating photovoltaic: High-efficiency solar cells

Abstract

The triple-junction solar cell is designed to exploit a wide range of the solar spectrum photons. These triple-layers consisting of GaInP/GaInAs/Ge, it is monolithically stacked, leading to high conversion efficiency. To describe and understand it's operating behaviour, this paper presents a performance analysis of a triple-junction solar cell, based on estimation modelling. A model was developed to determine the performance characteristic of the solar cell. Hence, the J-V curve is characterising the performance of solar cells, which used to optimise and improve the design of the cells. It has been discussed the effects of thermal load related to cell temperature increases on the cell's operating performance parameters. Cell temperature increases from 25 to 125 °C have resulted variances, which causes a significant decrease in efficiency to approximately −17%, open circuit voltage by −15% and fill factor by −4.5%. On the other hand, the current density slightly increased by +5.5%. Finally, ought to consider the thermal management while designing and developing solar CPV technology; therefore, it's significant to improve cell efficiency and to maintain cell integrity from thermal damage.

Keywords

• Performance parameters
• Temperature rises
• Triple-junction solar cells
• Performance analysis
• Cell temperature