PARQUET FRESNEL LENS INCREASES EFFICIENCY OF SOLAR CONCENTRATION THROUGH UNIFORM ILLUMINATION WITH BALANCED SPECTRAL DISTRIBUTION

摘要

HelioTrax has developed a novel parquet-style Fresnel lens design to achieve optimal efficiency for solar concentration onto a photovoltaic cell. Multi-junction photovoltaic cells operate most efficiently when incident light is uniformly distributed across the surface of the cell and when there is a balanced distribution of the spectral components of light. The parquet Fresnel lens was designed to accommodate these factors. This paper presents the results of a computer simulation study predicting optical performance of a parquet Fresnel lens. The parquet Fresnel lens was modeled in AutoCAD and a series of computer simulations were conducted using Light Tools to predict optical performance. Simulation results graphically show cell illumination uniformity where 95% of the irradiance received on the cell's surface is between 23.59 and 23.92 watts/cm{sup}2. In conclusion, simulation results indicate that a parquet Fresnel lens delivers uniform and spectrally balanced light to the surface of a multi-junction cell using a simple secondary reflector.