Solar thermophotovoltaics: brief review and a new look

✍ Scribed by P.A. Davies; A. Luque

• Book ID: 103966157
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1994
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 605 KB
• Volume: 33
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0927-0248
• DOI: 10.1016/0927-0248(94)90284-4

✦ Synopsis

Solar thermophotovoltaics (STPV) should theoretically give very high conversion efficiencies but there are technical drawbacks and, consequently, there have been few if any practical demonstrations.

Some articles on STPV are reviewed with the aim of pointing out the main design concepts. Although generally the receiver is a cavity relying on extremely high solar concentration at its mouth, such high concentration is not fundamentally necessary, rather a correctly chosen ratio of &endue subtended between the radiator and solar cell to that subtended between the radiator and the sun. For an ideal system, the efficiency limit is the same as that for a sun-driven Carnot engine. For real cells, the improvement given by a STPV over direct conversion is mainly a result of the current enhancement.

We introduce a concept of bypass, so radiation just above the bandgap energy goes straight to the cell, and show that for silicon cells, the performance is potentially better than for normal STPV. The authors hope to stimulate fresh thought about STPV.