Abstract
In this paper, we present a design and optical simulation of a novel linear Fresnel lens. The lens can be applied to a concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) system as a primary optical element (POE) to increase the concentration ratio and improve the uniformity of irradiance distribution over the receiver. In addition, the CPV system can use the proposed lens as a concentrator without involving a secondary optical element (SOE). The designed lens, which is a combination of two linear Fresnel lenses placed perpendicular to each other, can collect and distribute the direct sunlight on two dimensions. The lens is first designed in the MATLAB program, based on the edge ray theorem, Snell’s law, and the conservation of the optical path length, and then drawn in three dimensions (3D) by using LightToolsTM. Furthermore, in order to optimize the structure and investigate the performance of the lens, the ray tracing and the simulation are also performed in LightToolsTM. The results show that the newly designed lens can achieve a high concentration ratio of 576 times, a high optical efficiency of 82.4%, an acceptable tolerance of 0.84°, and high uniform irradiance of around 77% for both horizontal and vertical investigation lines over the receiver.
Highlights
In recent years, the development of photovoltaic technology has brought about significant improvement in the efficiency of solar cells
The concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) system is built in MATLAB and simulated in LightToolsTM to estimate the performance of the novel linear Fresnel lens
The results in this study show that the uniformity and acceptance are improved much, the structure of the designed Fresnel lens is just suitable for low concentrator photovoltaic (LCPV) because of low concentration ratio
Summary
The development of photovoltaic technology has brought about significant improvement in the efficiency of solar cells. The CPV consists of an optical part and multi-junction solar cells with high efficiency. The SOE has two functions in the optical part of the CPV system It helps to redistribute the sunlight over the receiver to improve the uniformity of irradiance distribution. We propose a novel design of the linear Fresnel lens, which is able to collect and distribute the sunlight on two dimensions over the receiver. Fresnel lenses used as upper and lower surfaces are designed by using the conservation of the optical path length and the edge ray theorem. The data to LightTools software draw the is performed to estimate the efficiency of the novel lens, which works as a concentrator in the CPV is performed to estimate(3D).
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