Design and performance research of a new non-tracking low concentrating with lens for photovoltaic systems

Abstract

Concentrating PV requires expensive solar tracking equipment, and the uneven flux distribution related to the angle of incidence can be detrimental to the cells. This paper proposes a non-tracking, low-concentrating, photovoltaic system with a lens. Unlike the composite paraboloidal concentrator, the new concentrator achieves a larger light reception range, and its mounting angle can be adjusted only four times per year to concentrate light efficiently and uniformly on the cell surface for 5 h a day, with an average optical efficiency and uniformity of heat flow distribution of 0.77 and 0.75, respectively. FLUENT is used to simulate the temperature of the concentrator. The shadow area on the cell surface of the composite paraboloidal concentrator results in the maximum temperature discrepancy of 68.53 °C. As a result of the large temperature difference, air diffuses more quickly in the cavity, further exacerbating the inhomogeneity of the surface temperature distribution, which stands at 0.34 at this point. The maximum temperature discrepancy on the cell surface of the new concentrator is only 18.93 °C and it achieves the uniformity of temperature distribution above 0.89. The results show that the comprehensive performance of this new concentrator is better than that of the composite paraboloidal concentrator.