Development and experimental evaluation of a complete solar thermophotovoltaic system. (4th April 2012)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Development and experimental evaluation of a complete solar thermophotovoltaic system. (4th April 2012)
- Main Title:
- Development and experimental evaluation of a complete solar thermophotovoltaic system
- Authors:
- Datas, Alejandro
Algora, Carlos - Abstract:
- <abstract abstract-type="main"> <title>ABSTRACT</title> <p>We present a practical implementation of a solar thermophotovoltaic (TPV) system. The system presented in this paper comprises a sunlight concentrator system, a cylindrical cup‐shaped absorber/emitter (made of tungsten coated with HfO<sub>2</sub>), and an hexagonal‐shaped water‐cooled TPV generator comprising 24 germanium TPV cells, which is surrounding the cylindrical absorber/emitter. This paper focuses on the development of shingled TPV cell arrays, the characterization of the sunlight concentrator system, the estimation of the temperature achieved by the cylindrical emitters operated under concentrated sunlight, and the evaluation of the full system performance under real outdoor irradiance conditions. From the system characterization, we have measured short‐circuit current densities up to 0.95 A/cm<sup>2</sup>, electric power densities of 67 mW/cm<sup>2</sup>, and a global conversion efficiency of about 0.8%. To our knowledge, this is the first overall solar‐to‐electricity efficiency reported for a complete solar thermophotovoltaic system. The very low efficiency is mainly due to the overheating of the cells (up to 120 °C) and to the high optical concentrator losses, which prevent the achievement of the optimum emitter temperature. The loss analysis shows that by improving both aspects, efficiencies above 5% could be achievable in the very short term and efficiencies above 10% could be achieved with further<abstract abstract-type="main"> <title>ABSTRACT</title> <p>We present a practical implementation of a solar thermophotovoltaic (TPV) system. The system presented in this paper comprises a sunlight concentrator system, a cylindrical cup‐shaped absorber/emitter (made of tungsten coated with HfO<sub>2</sub>), and an hexagonal‐shaped water‐cooled TPV generator comprising 24 germanium TPV cells, which is surrounding the cylindrical absorber/emitter. This paper focuses on the development of shingled TPV cell arrays, the characterization of the sunlight concentrator system, the estimation of the temperature achieved by the cylindrical emitters operated under concentrated sunlight, and the evaluation of the full system performance under real outdoor irradiance conditions. From the system characterization, we have measured short‐circuit current densities up to 0.95 A/cm<sup>2</sup>, electric power densities of 67 mW/cm<sup>2</sup>, and a global conversion efficiency of about 0.8%. To our knowledge, this is the first overall solar‐to‐electricity efficiency reported for a complete solar thermophotovoltaic system. The very low efficiency is mainly due to the overheating of the cells (up to 120 °C) and to the high optical concentrator losses, which prevent the achievement of the optimum emitter temperature. The loss analysis shows that by improving both aspects, efficiencies above 5% could be achievable in the very short term and efficiencies above 10% could be achieved with further improvements. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.</p> </abstract> … (more)
- Is Part Of:
- Progress in photovoltaics. Volume 21:Number 5(2013)
- Journal:
- Progress in photovoltaics
- Issue:
- Volume 21:Number 5(2013)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 21, Issue 5 (2013)
- Year:
- 2013
- Volume:
- 21
- Issue:
- 5
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2013-0021-0005-0000
- Page Start:
- 1025
- Page End:
- 1039
- Publication Date:
- 2012-04-04
- Subjects:
- Solar cells -- Periodicals
Photovoltaic cells -- Periodicals
Solar power plants -- Periodicals
621.31245 - Journal URLs:
- http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ ↗
- DOI:
- 10.1002/pip.2201 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 1062-7995
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 6873.060000
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library STI - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 3820.xml