System Engineering and Design of LSC-PV for Outdoor Lighting Applications

Abstract

Solar photovoltaic outdoor lighting applications usually comprise flat plate PV modules mounted on top of a light pole. In our paper instead, it is thought of to design the light pole as a luminescent solar concentrator photovoltaic (LSC-PV) module with solar cell strips and hence reduce costs of silicon solar cells because concentration effects reduce the area and costs of PV cells when compared to conventional PV modules. In our project different types of LSC-PV systems were simulated, studied and analyzed. We evaluated the performance of LSC-PV elements in flat and cylindrical bent shapes, fit for applications in the pole. The modules were made using commercially available PMMA plastic and contained red lumogen dye throughout the bulk. An important parameter determining the functionality of LSC-PV modules is the optical collection efficiency and modules having values sufficiently above 1 are considered to be economically and optically viable for use in electricity generation. From experiments for a flat LSC-PV with PV cells ate the back and mirrors on non-covered edges, the optical collection efficiency, concentration and electrical conversion efficiency that we have obtained are 19%, 1.9 and 2.9% respectively for a gain of 10. Similarly for a similar arrangement of half-bent LSC-PV shape, optical collection efficiency, concentration and electrical conversion efficiency are 15%, 1 and 2.4% respectively for a gain of 6.7.The losses in bent LSC-PVs are higher than those in the flat (increase of 52.5%), however bent LSC-PVs systems are expected to perform well on both sunny and cloudy days. Critical design parameters affecting LSC-PV systems have been studied and the outcome is expected to result in an optimized design shown by illustrations in our paper.