2018 International CET Conference on Control, Communication, and Computing (IC4) | July 05 – 07, 2018 | Trivandrum
Indoor Light Harvesting Using Dye Sensitized Solar
Cell
Priya Poulose
Dept. of Electrical Engineering
College of Engineering Trivandrum
Trivandrum, Kerala, India
priyapoulose92@gmail.com
Abstract—Solar power has assumed a vital and established role
in the present day’s clean energy economy. Ever since silicon
solar cells developed, the prime focus has always been to harness
the outdoor sunlight. The indoor light, though of lesser intensity
than its outdoor counterpart, has the potential to power on
devices such as wireless sensor nodes (WSN) that work in the low
power range. Harnessing electrical power from indoor lighting
environment with very low luminance level is relatively anew and
challenging concept. The limitation of the existing silicon solar
cells to perform efficiently under the indoor lighting condition
restricts its deployment. The Dye Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC),
also known as the next generation solar cell, with its better
conversion efficiency can work effectively in low lighting
conditions such as cloudy skies and indirect sunlight. In addition,
it has the capability to absorb light from various light sources
that are usually used to illuminate indoor rooms. The WSN
systems are conventionally battery powered. The power storage
capabilities of DSSCs could eliminate the additional need for a
battery and thus reduces the number of batteries deposited into
environment.The paper intends to carry out an experimental
study on DSSC and its potential application as an energy
harvester.
Keyword- Dye sensitized solar cell, indoor light, WSN
I. INTRODUCTION
Conventional silicon cells demand extremely-high purity
silicon (the purity is usually of the level 99.999%) and the
cells are typically made via energy-exhaustive crystal growth
and vapor deposition methods. A large quantity of light
absorbing material is used in silicon solar cell fabrication and
this adds to the cost of production. Silicon solar cells are
outperformed by dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) which have
wider acceptance angles and better absorption capacity for
diffused sunlight and fluorescent light. In a sharp contrast to
the conventional systems where the semiconductor undertakes
both the task of light absorption and charge carrier transport, a
DSSC performs the two functions separately. Light is captured
by a sensitizer, which is secured to the surface of a
semiconductor. The absorption capability of the cell can be
tuned to different wavelength ranges making it possible to
broaden the wavelengths of light it absorbs efficiently. The
charge separation occurs at the interface by means of a
photo induced electron infusion from the dye into the
conduction band of the solid. DSSC has been gaining
considerable attention because of its simplicity, ability to
978-1-5386-4966-4/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE
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P. Sreejaya
Senior Member, IEEE
College of Engineering Trivandrum
Trivandrum, Kerala, India
sreejaya@ieee.org
perform in low lighting condition, and low cost fabrication
process.
Most of the energy harvesting systems developed is for
outdoor applications where the sunlight is plenty. Intelligent
WSN systems need to operate reliably for several years
without the need for battery replacement, because frequent
battery replacement many be infeasible and expensive. In
relatively weaker light conditions, conventional light
harvesting systems that are designed for strong light irradiance
show very low efficiency.
The concept of harnessing energy from dual indoor energy
sources, i.e., thermal energy from machine heat and ambient
light from artificial lighting is proposed in [1]. A low input
voltage power management circuit system, using an
amorphous silicon photovoltaic cell as an energy harvester,
driving a wireless sensor load is explained in [2]. A detailed
comparison and experimental study of six distinct solar cell
technologies for ambient light energy harvesting under a
regulated light intensity of 330lux which is in tune with
normal office illumination is stated in [3]. The characteristics
and properties of mono and polycrystalline silicon, amorphous
silicon (a-Si), DSSC, Gallium Arsenide (GaAs), pervoskite
solar cells are summarized in Table III of [3]. Both GaAs and
DSSC exhibit an efficiency of about 28% whereas a-Si and
pervoskite cells have efficiencies around 15.59% and 20.4%,
respectively. The results obtained show that gallium arsenide
GaAs and DSSCs exhibit similar performances in indoor
condition. An experimental investigation in [4] on III-V solar
cells, i.e., GaAs and Gallium Indium Phosphide (GaInP)
material, revealed their capability to perform better than
amorphous silicon (a-Si) and DSSC under low-level
illumination. However, taking into consideration the material
and manufacturing cost, DSSC is the ideal option for
powering an autonomous wireless sensor node. A
methodology for a photovoltaic harvester with maximum
power point tracking for self-powered WSN is described in
[5]. It focuses on boosting the harvester’s efficiency in
transmitting energy from the solar module to the energy
storing device. The model discussed in [5] foresees the
instantaneous power collected by the panel thereby assisting in
the harvester design and optimization procedure. Compared to
the silicon counterpart, the DSSCs have better conversion
efficiency in low light conditions. As explained in [6], it is due
to the low charge transfer resistance under low irradiance
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 2018 International CET Conference on Control, Communication, and Computing (IC4) | July 05 – 07, 2018 | Trivandrum

condition. The effect of DSSC configuration on useable output is in parallel with the rectifying diode. An inductive
power, provided through low-power step-up DC-DC recombination passage on account of charge-transfer current
converters, is outlined in [8]. A better utilization of physical is incorporated in the circuit, consisting of a recombination
area, as explained in [8], enhanced the converter’s power resistance (Rrec) in series with an inductor (L). The charge-
efficiency by more than 6%, allowing a broader range of transfer resistance and interfacial capacitance at the anode and
wireless sensors to be powered by DSSC and possibly electrolyte/cathode interface are characterized by Re and Ce,
increasing the performance of existing DSSC powered sensors and Rce and Cce, respectively. The Nernst diffusion associated
as well. with the carrier transport by ions within the electrolyte is
denoted by the Warburg impedance (W). The series resistance
II. ENERGY HARVESTING SYSTEM component, RS, represents the contact and bulk resistive losses
A. Solar Cell Structure prevalent in a DSSC, such as, the sheet resistance of the
filmed TCO glass.
The structure of a dye sensitized solar cell resembles a The current-voltage terminal equation with open-circuit
sandwich framework, which includes the photoanode, voltage and short-circuit current, under static condition; can be
electrolyte and cathode. The electrodes consist of two glass expressed below as (1):
plates which has a transparent conducting oxide (TCO) q V IZ q V IZ
coating. The anode is formed by a substrate of titanium I Iph Ii exp 1 Ir exp 1
nkbTc mkbTc
dioxide (TiO2) layer coated with a dye material. The second
conducting glass is usually deposited with platinum (Pt) (1)
coating and it acts as the counter electrode. The space between
both the electrodes is filled with the electrolyte. It must have Where,
the suitable electrochemical potential in order to integrate with Iph Isc Ki Tc Tref s (2)
the semiconductor and systematically provide the charge
mobility in a cyclic manner. Z (3)

The light passing through the transparent electrode, onto the

dye layer, excites the electrons. It then flows through the TiO2 Zs W Rs (4)
coated layer towards the transparent electrode. Here, they are
collected for powering a load. Drifting through the external
circuit, the electrons find their way back into the cell through The photocurrent Iph (in eqn. (2)) primarily depends on the
the counter electrode, finally, flowing into the electrolyte. The solar radiation (s) and the operating temperature of the cell
electrolyte then transports the electrons back to the dye (Tc). V is the terminal voltage, Ki is the temperature
molecules. coefficient, Z is the complex impedance and Isc is the short
circuit current. Ir and Ii are the saturation current of
B. Equivalent circuit representation recombination and rectifying diodes respectively and are
A double diode representation (Fig.1) of the electrical circuit, described in equations (5) and (6) as:
as explained in [7], is considered as the equivalent exp
Ii Irs1 (5)
photovoltaic model.

Ir Irs2 / exp (6)

where, Eg denotes the band-gap energy of the dye molecule.

The reverse saturation current of the cell (Irs1 and Irs2 in (7) and
(8)) at a reference temperature depends on the open-circuit
voltage (Voc). It can be obtained by:

Fig.1. Schematic of the photovoltaic module Irs1 Isc/ exp 1 (7)

A typical DSSC comprises of three main interfaces formed by

TCO/TiO2, TiO2/dye/electrolyte, and electrolyte/Pt/TCO. The
interfacial charge exchange at the TiO2/dye/electrolyte is
denoted by a rectifying diode, Di, and a double-layer
capacitance, Ci. A recombination diode, Dr, is utilized to
indicate the losses due to interfacial charge recombination
appearing at both the dye and the electrolyte. A shunt
resistance, Rsh, takes into consideration all the parallel
resistive losses present across the photovoltaic device
including the leakage current. The photo induced current, Iph,
Irs2 Isc/ exp 1 (8)
Kb is the Boltzman constant, m and n are ideality factors of Di
and Dr respectively, q is the electron charge, Tc is the absolute
cell temperature, Tref is the cell temperature at STC.
C. Circuit Architecture
The circuit architecture of a practical energy harvesting
system is depicted in Fig.2 and Fig.3.

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 2018 International CET Conference on Control, Communication, and Computing (IC4) | July 05 – 07, 2018 | Trivandrum

B. Simulation of energy harvesting system

The circuit is modelled in SIMULINK as per the schematic
diagram. The boost converter is designed so as to provide the
voltage necessary to drive a microcontroller unit or power a
WSN. The simulation carried out by providing a constant
luminance of 200W/m2 and adopting Perturb and Observe
(P&O) MPPT algorithm, yielded an output voltage of 5.178V
(Fig.5) for a boost converter designed with L=100mH and
Fig.2. Block diagram of the indoor light harvesting system
C=65uF. In case of direct current sources such as dye
sensitized photovoltaic cells, the maximum power point
maximizes the power output under a constant indoor
fluorescent lighting condition and temperature.

Fig.3. Schematic of the energy harvesting system

The maximum possible power from the photovoltaic can be
derived by making use of the maximum power point tracking
(MPPT) technique which is responsible for extracting and
feeding the power to the load, through the boost converter
which steps up the voltage to required magnitude.
III. SIMULATION RESULTS
The logic explained in the circuit architecture has been
implemented in MATLAB/SIMULINK environment.
A. Simulation result of solar cell model
The P-V and I-V curves under varying irradiance conditions
(200W/m2 to 1000W/m2) can be observed in Fig.4.

Fig.5. Observed output of the SIMULINK model

IV. HARDWARE MODEL OF BOOST CONVERTER

The hardware model of the boost circuit is demonstrated in
Fig.6. It has been implemented using LT1073 micro power
DC/DC converter. The input supply can be regulated to as low
as 1.25V, the circuit displayed an output of about 5V. The
converter, in conjunction with a DSSC module generating a
few volts, can be used effectively to run a microcontroller or
power on a WSN.

Fig.6. Output of boost converter circuit

Fig.4. Simulated P-V and I-V characteristics under low irradiance
conditions (20 to 100mW/sq.cm)

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 2018 International CET Conference on Control, Communication, and Computing (IC4) | July 05 – 07, 2018 | Trivandrum

V. EXPERIMENTAL STUDY
The fabrication of a DSSC was carried out by making use
of Fluorine-doped Tin Oxide (FTO) coated transparent
conducting glass by the dimension 25mmX25mmX2.2mm.
TiO2 paste is annealed on to the glass substrate in a tubular
furnace at a temperature of 450 for about 20 to 30 minutes.
The substrate is then allowed to cool down to the room
temperature. It is essential to sensitize the electrode by making
use of a dye which can absorb as much light energy as
possible in the visible light spectrum. Fruits are a source of
natural dyes and they are capable of absorbing visible light.
This property is due to the presence of anthocyanin, a (a) (b)
compound that is responsible for the red, violet and blue Fig.9.Measurements under halogen lighting: (a) Voltage reading (b)
colors found in many fruits, flowers and leaves. Pomegranate current reading
extract was used as the dye for the experiment. The stained
electrode, as shown in Fig.7 (a) is coated with electrolyte The electrical characteristics of the cell were recorded
obtained by mixing 0.01molar iodine in 0.1molar potassium upon excitation with three different light sources, maintaining
iodide solution. The counter electrode was prepared by a constant intensity and varying the distance of the light
scribbling with the graphite pencil on the glass plate. The source from the cell. The voltage characteristics, as seen in
electrodes are assembled together (Fig.7 (b)) and the cell is Fig.10, were observed under a 12W LED lamp (40-45 lumens)
tested. and mobile phone flashlight (60-80 lumens).

400
350
300
250
200
(a) (b) 150
Fig.7. (a) Pomegranate juice absorbed on TiO2 coated conducting 100
glass substrate (b) Fabricated DSSC
50
A. Testing of the DSSC
0
The cell is tested by connecting the voltmeter leads on to
the offset portion of the assembled cell. Fig.8. (a) and (b) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
show that, when tested in an indoor environment, under Distance (cm)
diffused lighting condition, the cell yielded a voltage of about
100mV and under fluorescent lighting condition around halogen(mV) flashlight(mV) LED(mV)
290mV was observed.
Fig.10. Plot showing the variation of voltage with respect to distance
of light source from the cell when excited by three different light
sources.

A series combination of three cells, as seen in Fig.11,

yielded a voltage of 246mV across a 4.7uF capacitor.

(a) (b)
Fig.8. Voltmeter reading under (a) diffused sunlight (b) fluorescent
lighting
A voltage of 253mV and current in the order of microamperes
were obtained, as demonstrated in Fig.9. (a) and (b), upon
exciting the cell by a 12V, 35W halogen tungsten lamp (430
lumens output).
Fig.11. DSSCs in series

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 2018 International CET Conference on Control, Communication, and Computing (IC4) | July 05 – 07, 2018 | Trivandrum

Table I presents a comparative analysis of the performance ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

of different DSSC samples from the literature. The authors wish to thank Mar Ivanios College,
Thiruvananthapuram for the guidance provided to perform the
TABLE I. PERFORMANCE COMPARISON OF DSSC
experiments relating to the fabrication of DSSC in the
Reference Voc Isc Electronic Materials Research Laboratory.
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