Solar thermophotovoltaic testing and performance estimate

Book · Mon Dec 30 23:00:00 EST 1996

OSTI ID:438644

Stone, K W; Schneider, S S; Drubka, R E; Kusek, S M ^[1]

---

1. McDonnell Douglas, Huntington Beach, CA (United States)

Solar thermophotovoltaics (STPV) power systems have attractive attributes for both space and terrestrial applications. McDonnell Douglas Aerospace (MDA) has been investigating STPV power systems analytically, in laboratory testing, and in on-sun testing for the past five years. This paper presents a conceptual design of a STPV system, discusses its operation, and describes the attributes with respect to terrestrial and space power applications. A description of a STPV testbed is given and a summary of the 500 hrs of on-sun testing is presented. The test data presented includes performance data for TPV cells furnished by NASA Lewis Research Center (LeRC) and the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) at temperatures up to 1,220 C. An estimate of the performance of a STPV system is presented which incorporates the results of the testing and analytical models.

• OSTI ID: 438644
• Report Number(s): CONF-9603117--; ISBN 0-7918-1765-2
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
BENCH-SCALE EXPERIMENTS
CURRENT DENSITY
DESIGN
EFFICIENCY
ELECTRIC CURRENTS
ELECTRIC POTENTIAL
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FILL FACTORS
PERFORMANCE
PHOTOVOLTAIC POWER PLANTS
SOLAR CONCENTRATORS
SPACE VEHICLES
TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE
THERMOPHOTOVOLTAIC CONVERTERS