Experimental investigation of a novel absorptive/reflective solar concentrator: A thermal analysis

Abstract

This paper presents the experimental investigation of a novel cross-compound parabolic concentrator (CCPC). For the first time, a CCPC module was designed to simultaneously work as an electricity generator and collect the thermal energy present in the module which is generated due to the incident irradiation. This CCPC module consists of two regions: an absorber surface atop the rig and a reflective region below that to reflect the irradiation onto the photovoltaic (PV) cell, coupled together to form an absorptive/reflective CCPC (AR-CCPC) module. A major issue in the use of PV cells is the decrease in electrical conversion efficiency with the increase in cell temperature. This module employs an active cooling system to decrease the PV cell temperature, optimizing the electrical performance and absorbing the heat generated within the module. This system was found to have an overall efficiency of 63%, which comprises the summation of the electrical and thermal efficiency posed by the AR-CCPC module.