Effects of Reflectance and Shading on Parabolic Dish Photovoltaic Solar Concentrator Performance

Abstract

Photovoltaic concentrating systems have recently become one of the topics of interest to researchers around the world due to the high cost of semiconductors used in the manufacture of solar cells, as well as the wide area of traditional photovoltaic panels. The target can be met by compensating for the vast areas of solar cells with smaller cell areas made of reflective or refractive materials that concentrate higher intensity solar radiation to reach a higher outward power. In this research a parabolic dish solar photovoltaic concentrator is studied theoretically. The concentration ratio at the reflecting concentrator has been studied as a function of reflectance and shading losses under five different rim angles ( 45°, 55°, 65°,75° and 85°) using equations simulated in the MATLAB software. Following that, the total absorbed solar radiation and output power provided by CPV with multi-junction solar cells. the results indicated that the concentration ratio increase linearly with reflectance, while it increases as the rim angle decrease. The best value of concentration ratio is about 172 for rim angle 45° and reflectance 95%.