The effects of non-uniform illumination of solar cells with concentrated light

Abstract Non-uniform illumination of solar cells leads to a decrease in efficiency. Two cases were investigated experimentally: loss of power due to the shadowing of a fringe area of one cell, and loss of output of two cells which were connected in series and were illuminated to different degrees. The results show that losses due to these effects will reduce the output of concentrator photovoltaic systems working at low concentration conditions by a few per cent only.