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Baldo LUMINESCENT SOLAR CONCENTRATORS
Baldo LUMINESCENT SOLAR CONCENTRATORS
Baldo LUMINESCENT SOLAR CONCENTRATORS
Marc Baldo
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
baldo@mit.edu
http://softsemi.mit.edu
http://rle.mit.edu/excitonics
65%
Three aims
Solution? Use solar concentrator to get more electricity from small (expensive cells)
Obstacles
solar
radiationair
dye
glass
photoluminescence
PV PVair
absorption,
Solar cell 1 abs. emission
emission
Band
gap
1
Wavelength [λ ]
absorption,
Solar cell 2 absorption emission
emission
Band
gap
2
Wavelength [λ ]
absorption,
Solar cell 3 absorption emission
emission
Band
gap
3
Wavelength [λ ]
Advantages
1. Each solar cell pumped ~monochromatically at band edge = minimal heating.
2. Higher solar cell voltages due to increase in optical concentration.
3. Lower the cost: Don’t use expensive semiconductors simply to gather light
4. Passive system that concentrates diffuse light & doesn’t need to track the sun
5. Smoothes out non-uniform optical excitation
6. Tolerant of fabrication defects
MORE ROBUST THAN CONVENTIONAL PV… BULLET DAMAGE TESTS
Bullets: 0.17 HMR FMJ
2375fps (4 mm diam.)
Shot from an H&R
rifle at ~50 feet.
Optical concentrators
show loss near bullet
hole,
but light collection at
edges remains strong.
BUILDING INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS (WINDOWS & SKYLIGHTS)
100
Sunpower EQE Nd:glass
emission
80
60
40 Nd:glass
absorption
20
0
300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200
Wavelength (nm)
ssion compatible with high performance Si solar cells. (much cheaper than III-V ce
It looks practical …
1.0
absorption
0.8
total
emissio
0.6 n
edge
emissio
0.4 n
face
0.2 emission
0.0
500 600 700 800 900
Wavelength (nm)
Counts (a.u.)
6000
4000
2000
PROJECTIONS
P
ow
erc
onv
ers
io
neffic
ie
nc
y
25 15%
E
0
.9 0.7
External quantum
13%
Q
20
post-absorption O
0.6
efficiency
0
.8
15 11%
10
0
.7
0.5 9%
0
.6
5 0.4 7%
0 0
.5
400 500 600 700 800 900 0.30 50 100 150 200 5%
Wavelength (nm)
0
.4
0 5
0
Geometric
10
0
Gain150 2
00
CONCLUSIONS
•Separate solar energy conversion into optical and electrical parts.
•
•Use conventional solar cells for electrical part.
•
•Pre-process sunlight using excitonic systems & materials
absorption,
Solar cell 1 abs. emission
emission
Band
gap
1
Wavelength [λ ]
absorption,
Solar cell 2 absorption emission
emission
Band
gap
2
Wavelength [λ ]
absorption,
Solar cell 3 absorption emission
emission Band
gap
3
Wavelength [λ ]
CONCLUSIONS
Funding :
Chesonis (Material exploration & Simulation)
MITEI (Rare earth concentrators)
Example:
The CdTe process at First Solar
(>300 MW/year of 10% modules, throughput = 4µ m thick films every 40s)
New semiconductors/fabrication techniques alone will not achieve large cost savings.