Generalized spectral performance evaluation of multijunction solar cells using a multicore, parallelized version of SMARTS

Abstract

The spectral composition of sunlight is subjected to constant changes due to variations in atmospheric conditions and varying path length of the sunrays though the earth's atmosphere ("air mass"). In this paper, we analyze the spectral direct irradiance based on the aerosol data from the AERONET ground sunphotometer network. Using a high-performance version of the simulation software SMARTS, the spectral irradiance is studied for 379 sites distributed worldwide. These calculations find particular application in concentrating photovoltaic power plants that use high-efficiency multijunction solar cells. To demonstrate the usage of the calculated spectra, the effects on the current balance for some cell designs available from the industry or research laboratories are calculated and compared to those under the reference spectrum AM1.5d from ASTM G173. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.