Solar Thermophotovoltaic Converters: Efficiency Potentialities

Solar thermophotovoltaic efficiency is theoretically estimated using the following optimisation parameters: sunlight concentration ratio, absorber/emitter temperature/efficiency, photon recirculation efficiency and TPV cell parameters. It has been found that emitter temperature exceeding 2000 K, absorber/emitter efficiency of 90% and TPV systems efficiency exceeding 30% can be obtained at sunlight concentration ratio exceeding 8⋅103 suns with using GaSb cells with back surface reflector and grey‐body emitter in vacuum. Utilization of the selective emitter allows to increase the efficiency: calculated efficiency of TPV system with tungsten emitter increases from 30% to 36%.

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