Modeling and optimizing of non-imaging disc concentrator (NIDC) photovoltaic system performance under non-uniform illumination

Abstract

The electrical performance of a dense array concentrator photovoltaic (DA-CPV) receiver is limited due to various conditions of non-uniform illumination. In this paper, a proposed design of non-imaging dish concentrator NIDC photovoltaic system with an optimal connection configuration of DA-CPV module is evaluated to maximize the power conversion efficiency. Firstly, the effect of four optical parameters on the receiver of NIDC photovoltaic system on illumination distribution is investigated. Then, eight connection configurations are employed and compared to reduce mismatch losses. Therefore, detailed optical and electrical models are developed and implanted on Matlab software to achieve the highest possible efficiencies. Simulation results reveal that the optical parameters, i.e. length, width, receiver position and radius have significant effects on the solar flux distribution. Under an adequate illumination distribution, total cross tied-rotational symmetry (TCT-RS) configuration achieves a maximum power with 513 W, which is the highest in the eight connection configurations. Compared with 32 × 2 Series Parallel configuration, the conversion efficiency is improved by at least 65.55 %.When considering the effect of solar cell type, the DA-CPV module with Spectrolab CPV solar cell can achieves much higher conversion efficiencies. In particular, it reaches 551.8 W for TCT-RS configuration and at least 5.79 % higher than that obtained with the first CPV solar cell. In fact, this study can be very useful to design and optimize a NIDC under real world conditions.