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Title: Optics-based approach to thermal management of photovoltaics: Selective-spectral and radiative cooling

Journal Article · · IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics
 [1];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States)
  2. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
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For commercial one-sun solar modules, up to 80% of the incoming sunlight may be dissipated as heat, potentially raising the temperature 20-30 °C higher than the ambient. In the long term, extreme self-heating erodes efficiency and shortens lifetime, thereby dramatically reducing the total energy output. Therefore, it is critically important to develop effective and practical (and preferably passive) cooling methods to reduce operating temperature of photovoltaic (PV) modules. In this paper, we explore two fundamental (but often overlooked) origins of PV self-heating, namely, sub-bandgap absorption and imperfect thermal radiation. The analysis suggests that we redesign the optical properties of the solar module to eliminate parasitic absorption (selective-spectral cooling) and enhance thermal emission (radiative cooling). Comprehensive opto-electro-thermal simulation shows that the proposed techniques would cool one-sun terrestrial solar modules up to 10 °C. As a result, this self-cooling would substantially extend the lifetime for solar modules, with corresponding increase in energy yields and reduced levelized cost of electricity.

Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
Grant/Contract Number:
AC36-08GO28308
OSTI ID:
1358684
Report Number(s):
NREL/JA-5J00-66564
Journal Information:
IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics, Vol. 7, Issue 2; ISSN 2156-3381
Publisher:
IEEECopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 79 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Cited By (6)

Device physics underlying silicon heterojunction and passivating-contact solar cells: A topical review
  • Chavali, Raghu V. K.; De Wolf, Stefaan; Alam, Muhammad A.
  • Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications, Vol. 26, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1002/pip.2959
journal January 2018
Radiative cooling of solar cells: opto-electro-thermal physics and modeling journal January 2019
Radiative sky cooling: Fundamental principles, materials, and applications journal June 2019
Thermionic cooling devices based on resonant-tunneling AlGaAs/GaAs heterostructure journal January 2018
Non-Curing Thermal Interface Materials with Graphene Fillers for Thermal Management of Concentrated Photovoltaic Solar Cells journal December 2019
A Review on Recent Development of Cooling Technologies for Concentrated Photovoltaics (CPV) Systems journal December 2018

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Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
radiative cooling
reliability
selective-spectral cooling
self-heating
sub-bandgap absorption