Optical and Thermal Analysis of Different Asymmetric Compound Parabolic Photovoltaic Concentrators (ACPPVC) Systems for Building Integration

Ray-trace techniques have been used to predict the optical performance and angular acceptance of Asymmetric Compound Parabolic Photovoltaic Concentrator (ACPPVC) systems suitable for integration into vertical south facing building facades. Untruncated and truncated ACPPVC systems ACPPVC-50, ACPPVC-55 and ACPPVC-60, which have acceptance angels of 50° and 0°, 55° and 0°, 60° and 0°, respectively, have been simulated. The PV absorber was 0.125m wide in all simulations. Comparisons of angular acceptance between the untruncated and truncated systems are also discussed. Increased truncation leads to increased angular acceptance with reduced maximum concentration. From the simulations undertake, the angular acceptance was 100% in the range of incidence angles between the acceptance half angels for all ACPPVC systems. The highest optical efficiency predicted was 88.67% for all ACPPVC systems. The predicted solar flux distributions over the PV surface for the truncated ACPPVC-55 system are presented for selected angles of incidence along with concentration ratio. The temperatures within the truncated ACPPVC-55 system predicted using Computational Fluid Dynamics are presented for various solar incidence angles.