Spectral efficiency scaling of performance ratio for multijunction cells

Author

McDonald, Mark

Author_Institution

SolFocus, Inc., Mountain View, CA, USA

fYear

2009

fDate

7-12 June 2009

Abstract

Understanding the scaling of HCPV (highly concentrated photovoltaics) MJ (multi-junction) cell (PR) performance ratio is a key for targeting development to reach grid parity with conventional energy sources. This PR scaling for MJ cell HCPV must be evaluated for conditions present in a terrestrial use case, including limitations due to temporal solar resource variation, and MJ cell fabrication tolerances. The effect of spectral mismatch on PR scaling by the figure of merit of weighted average cell efficiency Â¿_spectral is investigated. Idealized MJ cells are investigated using field spectra from Golden, CO from 2002 to 2007 to establish potential PR scaling vs. junction count. Several specific instances of known and proposed junction sets are analyzed to provide a baseline for the material constraints applicable in the near term to HCPV MJ cells. Finally, the Â¿_spectral of multi-terminal 3J cells with present day bandgaps is computed.

Keywords

energy gap; solar cells; MJ cell; PR scaling; figure of merit; highly concentrated photovoltaics multijunction cell; performance ratio; spectral efficiency scaling; spectral mismatch; weighted average cell efficiency; Atmospheric waves; Costs; Fabrication; Photonic band gap; Photovoltaic cells; Predictive models; Production systems; Solar energy; Testing; Wideband;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2009 34th IEEE

Conference_Location

Philadelphia, PA

ISSN

0160-8371

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-2949-3

Electronic_ISBN

0160-8371

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2009.5411236

Filename

5411236