A novel concentrating photovoltaic system with two separate receivers

A common approach for converting sunlight to electricity at a low cost is either to achieve high conversion efficiencies and/or by using low-cost systems. High solar energy conversion efficiency by using photovoltaic devices has been achieved by concentrating sunlight on a multi-junction monolithically stacked solar cell. The process of manufacturing monolithically stacked solar cells is complex and makes restrictions on the choice of materials. Also, these cells are made of expensive III-V semiconductors. Low cost conversion of sunlight can also be achieved by using inexpensive materials like Silicon. In this paper, a concentrating photovoltaic system is proposed for achieving high conversion efficiencies on a low cost system. The proposed system has the feature of splitting the sunbeam into two beams and directing each one towards a receiver. The system is optimized to have a Si solar cell and an AlGaAs cell. The efficiency of the system is estimated at 23%.