Abstract
The paper presents a novel densely packed assembly for high concentrating photovoltaic applications, designed to fit 125x primary and 4x secondary reflective optics. This assembly can accommodate 144 multijunction cells and is one of the most populated modules presented so far. Based on the thermal simulation results, an aluminum-based insulated metal substrate has been used as baseplate; this technology is commonly exploited for Light Emitting Diode applications, due to its optimal thermal management. The original outline of the conductive copper layer has been developed to minimize Joule losses by reducing the number of interconnections among the cells in series. Oversized Schottky diodes have been employed for bypassing purposes. The whole design fits the IPC-2221 requirements. The plate has been manufactured using standard electronic processes and then characterized through an indoor test and the results are here presented and commented on. The assembly achieves a fill factor above 80% and an efficiency of 29.4% at 500x, less than 2% lower than that of a single cell commercial receiver. The novel design of the conductive pattern is conceived to decrease the power losses and the deployment of an insulated metal substrate represents an improvement towards the awaited cost-cutting for high concentrating photovoltaic technologies.
Highlights
The basic idea behind the Concentrating Photovoltaics (CPV) is to reduce the cost of photovoltaic plants by replacing some of the expensive semiconductor material with a cheaper reflective or refractive material [1, 2]
This paper focuses instead on a new insulated metal substrate-based 144cell assembly for 500x HCPV applications
A new, densely packed assembly for 500x HCPV applications has been developed on an insulated metal substrate
Summary
The basic idea behind the Concentrating Photovoltaics (CPV) is to reduce the cost of photovoltaic plants by replacing some of the expensive semiconductor material with a cheaper reflective or refractive material (such as a mirror or a lens) [1, 2]. The laminated material is a low thermal conductive fiberglass, but it can be replaced with a metal baseplate This way, the thermal management of the system can be enhanced and the board is referred to as an insulated metal substrate (IMS). IMSs are considered to be the best choice in applications where specific designs are needed, no matter the required quantity [11] For these reasons, HCPV assembly manufacturers’ interest in IMS technology is increasing [10, 12,13,14].
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