The impact of anti-reflective coating and optical bandpass interference filter on solar cell electrical-thermal performance

Solar cells utilize only the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum to generate electricity. A great reduction in the temperature of a solar cell resulting from filtering infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths will eventually lead to an increase in efficiency. Here, a detailed analysis of the use of an optical bandpass interference filter with antireflective coating as a potential solution to this problem has been carried out. The optical bandpass filter aims to filter out unwanted wavelengths while the antireflective coating functions to reduce the amount of light reflected from the solar panel surface. A simulation program using SolidWorks (Flow Simulation Study) has been performed to demonstrate the effect of utilizing optical bandpass interference filter with antireflective coating on solar panel and the temperature of each cell layer. The thermal analysis results obtained from SolidWorks were then exported to MATLAB/Simulink to investigate the electrical output parameters. Results showed that optical bandpass interference filter combined with antireflective coating could reduce the temperature of the solar cell by 11.83 Kelvin which led to 14.32% increase in the maximum output power within an hour of exposure to peak solar radiation located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.