Industrialization of hybrid Si/III–V and translucent planar micro‐tracking modules
Creators
- Gaël Nardin1
-
César Domínguez2
- Álvaro Fernando Aguilar1
- Laetitia Anglade1
- Mathilde Duchemin1
- David Schuppisser1
- Florian Gerlich1
- Mathieu Ackermann1
- Laurent Coulot1
- Blaise Cuénod3
- Delphine Petri3
- Xavier Niquille4
- Nicolas Badel3
- Agata Lachowicz3
- Matthieu Despeisse3
- Jacques Levrat3
- Christophe Ballif5
-
Stephen Askins6
-
Rubén Núñez6
-
Norman Jost6
-
Guido Vallerotto6
-
Ignacio Antón6
- 1. Insolight SA, Ecublens, Switzerland
- 2. Instituto de Energía Solar, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Madrid, Spain. Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería y Diseño Industrial, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Madrid, Spain.
- 3. CSEM SA, PV-Center, Neuchatel, Switzerland
- 4. Photovoltaics and Thin-Film Electronics Laboratory, Institute of Microengineering (PVLAB), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
- 5. CSEM SA, PV-Center, Neuchatel, Switzerland. Photovoltaics and Thin-Film Electronics Laboratory, Institute of Microengineering (PVLAB), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
- 6. Instituto de Energía Solar, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Madrid, Spain
Description
A tracking‐integrated hybrid micro‐concentrator module is presented that can harvest direct, diffuse, and albedo irradiance components. It uses biconvex 180× lens arrays to concentrate direct light on high‐efficiency III–V solar cells (29% module efficiency has been demonstrated outdoors on direct sunlight at Concentrator Standard Test Conditions) and a planar micro‐tracking mechanism to allow installation in static frames. Two architectures have been developed to harvest diffuse irradiance: (1) a hybrid architecture where the backplane is covered with monofacial or bifacial Si cells; (2) a translucent architecture where diffuse light is transmitted through the module for dual‐land‐use applications, such as agrivoltaics. Simulations show that the hybrid architecture provides an excess of yearly energy production compared to 20% efficiency flat‐plate photovoltaic (PV) module in all locations studied, including those with a low direct normal irradiance (DNI) content, and up to 38% advantage in high‐DNI locations. The use of bifacial heterojunction and interdigitated back‐contact Si cells has been explored for the glass–Si–glass backplane laminate to harvest albedo light. Bifacial gains modeled can boost energy yield by about 30% in the best scenario. We discuss the perspectives of the translucent modules for dual‐land‐use applications as well, such as integration in greenhouses for agriculture‐integrated PV (agrivoltaics). This architecture can provide up to 47% excess electricity compared to a spaced reference Si array that transmits the same amount of solar photosynthetically active radiation for crop production. The HIPERION consortium funded by the European H2020 program is making an intensive effort to take this technology to the industrial scale.
Notes
Files
pip.3387.pdf
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