A Concentrating Mini Solar Power System to Overcome the Market Share

Abstract

Fresnel lenses are known and used for many years; yet the commercialization, especially in photovoltaic application is not well researched and analyzed. On the other side, although the photovoltaic power plants are rapidly entering the market, the major drawback is still the price of Si cells. In this work, we constructed a Fresnel lens of mini concentrator of around 70 sun with a one cm2 standard monocrystalline Si solar cell and conducted various preliminary experiments. The results that we observed are noteworthy as follows: at medium concentration, if the temperature is not controlled well very rapid degradation or even null-functioning of the cell is un-avoidable. Without a thermal sink structure at the back side of the cell, the temperature can raise up to 350 °C in minutes. With the metal sink structure covering the cell, the temperature rises up to 175 °C within a few minutes. However, with a thermal water-cooling system that we constructed, the equilibrium temperature can be kept at 65 °C, which can further be adjusted by proper thermal sink and cooling design.