Abstract
Concentrating PV (CPV) cells are often designed optimally depending on solar concentrator characteristics and operating conditions to ensure the best system performance. Before reaching a PV cell, solar radiation may experience some optical losses caused by the different physical phenomena occurring in a solar concentrator. A particular issue with the CPV technology is the non-uniformity of the concentrated radiation, which will cause power dissipation and reduce the overall efficiency of the PV cell. Considering this issue and understanding of its effect is significant in PV cell design and optimization. This paper presents a new approach for modeling PV cell under non-uniform illumination condition, in which a PV cell is represent by an equivalent array of cell splits. The main advantage of this approach is the possibility to express each cell split voltage as an explicit function of the current by using the Lambert-W function. The output characteristics are simulated and analyzed using proposed simulation approach built in MATLAB/Simulink platform. Through the analysis of the results, a comprehensive expression of the PV cell under non-uniform illumination could be present.
Highlights
PV cell is the key element in the photovoltaic system design
A issue with Concentrating Photovoltaics (CPV) technology is the non-uniformity of illumination distribution on PV cell surface, which will cause power dissipations and reduce the overall efficiency of the system
This paper proposes an approach in which a low concentrating PV cell could be considered equivalent to an array of cell splits connected in parallel
Summary
Corresponding Author: Yuehong Su Department of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Nottingham, University Park, NG7 2RD, UK Gang Pei Department of Thermal Science and Energy Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, 96 Jinzhai Road, Hefei City, 230026, China
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