Cost trade between multijunction, gallium arsenide and silicon solar cells

Abstract

Multijunction (MJ),1 gallium arsenide (GaAs) and silicon (Si) solar cells have respective test efficiencies of approximately 24%, 18.5% and 14.8%. Multijunction and gallium arsenide solar cells weigh more than silicon solar cells and cost approximately five times as much per unit power at the cell level.2 A trade is performed for the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) spacecraft to determine which of these cell types would have offered an overall performance and price advantage to the spacecraft. A trade is also performed for the multijunction cells under the assumption that they will cost over ten times that of silicon cells at the cell level. The trade shows that the TRMM project, less the cost of the instrument, ground systems and mission operations, would spend approximately $552 000 per kilogram to launch and support1 science in the case of the spacecraft equipped with silicon solar cells. If these cells are exch anged for gallium arsenide solar cells, an additional 31 kg of science can be launched and serviced at a price of approximately $90 000 per kilogram. The 31 kg array weight reduction is shown to derive from the smaller area of the array and hence reductio ns in the weight of the array substrate and supporting structure. If the silicon solar cells are changed out for multijunction solar cells, an additional 45 kg of science above the silicon baseline can be launched and supported at a price of approximately $58 000 per kilogram. The trade shows that even if the multijunction cells are priced over ten times that of silicon cells, a price that is much higher than projected, the additional 45 kg of science are launched and serviced at $180 000 per kilogram. This is still much less than the original $552 000 per kilogram to launch and service the science. Data and qualitative factors are presented to show that these figures are subject to a great deal of uncertainty. Nonetheless, the benefit of the higher efficiency solar cells for TRMM is far greater than the uncertainties in the analysis. © This article is a US Government work and, as such, is in the public domain in the United States of America