Spectral binning for energy production calculations and multijunction solar cell design

García Vara, Iván and McMahon, William E. and Habte, Aron and Geisz, John F. and Steiner, Myles A. and Sengupta, Manajit and Friedman, Daniel J. (2017). Spectral binning for energy production calculations and multijunction solar cell design. "Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications", v. N/A (n. N/A); pp. 1-7. ISSN 1099-159X. https://doi.org/10.1002/pip.2943.

Description

Title: Spectral binning for energy production calculations and multijunction solar cell design
Author/s:
  • García Vara, Iván
  • McMahon, William E.
  • Habte, Aron
  • Geisz, John F.
  • Steiner, Myles A.
  • Sengupta, Manajit
  • Friedman, Daniel J.
Item Type: Article
Título de Revista/Publicación: Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications
Date: September 2017
ISSN: 1099-159X
Volume: N/A
Subjects:
Freetext Keywords: energy harvesting efficiency multijunction solar cells spectral binning
Faculty: Instituto de Energía Solar (IES) (UPM)
Department: Electrónica Física
UPM's Research Group: Semiconductores III-V
Creative Commons Licenses: None

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Abstract

Currently, most solar cells are designed for and evaluated under standard spectra intended to represent typical spectral conditions. However, no single spectrum can capture the spectral variability needed for annual energy production (AEP) calculations, and this shortcoming becomes more significant for series-connected multijunction cells as the number of junctions increases. For this reason, AEP calculations are often performed on very detailed yearlong sets of data, but these pose 2 inherent challenges: (1) These data sets comprise thousands of data points, which appear as a scattered cloud of data when plotted against typical parameters and are hence cumbersome to classify and compare, and (2) large sets of spectra bring with them a corresponding increase in computation or measurement time. Here, we show how a large spectral set can be reduced to just a few “proxy” spectra, which still retain the spectral variability information needed for AEP design and evaluation. The basic “spectral binning” methods should be extensible to a variety of multijunction device architectures. In this study, as a demonstration, the AEP of a 4-junction device is computed for both a full set of spectra and a reduced proxy set, and the results show excellent agreement for as few as 3 proxy spectra. This enables much faster (and thereby more detailed) calculations and indoor measurements and provides a manageable way to parameterize a spectral set, essentially creating a “spectral fingerprint,” which should facilitate the understanding and comparison of different sites.
(C) John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Funding Projects

Type
Code
Acronym
Leader
Title
FP7
299878
METACELLS
Unspecified
Advanced epitaxy of metamorphic semiconductor structures for multijunction solar cells
Government of Spain
RYC‐2014‐15621
Unspecified
Unspecified
Unspecified

More information

Item ID: 47860
DC Identifier: https://oa.upm.es/47860/
OAI Identifier: oai:oa.upm.es:47860
DOI: 10.1002/pip.2943
Official URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pip.294...
Deposited by: Dr. Iván García Vara
Deposited on: 26 Sep 2017 08:34
Last Modified: 14 Mar 2019 13:54
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