Radiative cooling for low-bandgap photovoltaics under concentrated sunlight
Abstract
Radiative cooling is a uniquely compact and passive cooling mechanism. Significant applications can be found in energy generation, particularly concentrating photovoltaics (CPV) and thermophotovoltaics (TPV). Both rely on low-bandgap PV cells that experience significant reductions in performance and lifetime when operating at elevated temperatures. This issue creates a significant barrier to widespread adoption. To address this challenge, we demonstrate enhanced radiative cooling for low-bandgap PV cells under concentrated sunlight for the first time. A composite material stack is used as the radiative cooler. Enhanced radiative cooling reduces operating temperatures by 10 °C, translating into a relative increase of 5.7% in open-circuit voltage and an estimated increase of 40% in lifetime at 13 suns. By using a model, we also estimate that the same setup could achieve an improvement of 34% in open-circuit voltage for 35 suns, which could reduce levelized costs of energy up to 33% for high-activation energy failure modes. The radiative cooling enhancement demonstrated here is a simple and straightforward approach, which can be generalized to other optoelectronic systems.
- Authors:
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Stanford Univ., CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE); National Science Foundation (NSF); US Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research (ONR)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1501749
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1613292
- Grant/Contract Number:
- EE0004946; EEC1454315-CAREER; EEC-1227110; N00014-15-1-2833
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Optics Express
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Optics Express Journal Volume: 27 Journal Issue: 8; Journal ID: ISSN 1094-4087
- Publisher:
- Optical Society of America (OSA)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 14 SOLAR ENERGY; Optics
Citation Formats
Zhou, Zhiguang, Wang, Ze, and Bermel, Peter. Radiative cooling for low-bandgap photovoltaics under concentrated sunlight. United States: N. p., 2019.
Web. doi:10.1364/OE.27.00A404.
Zhou, Zhiguang, Wang, Ze, & Bermel, Peter. Radiative cooling for low-bandgap photovoltaics under concentrated sunlight. United States. doi:10.1364/OE.27.00A404.
Zhou, Zhiguang, Wang, Ze, and Bermel, Peter. Tue .
"Radiative cooling for low-bandgap photovoltaics under concentrated sunlight". United States. doi:10.1364/OE.27.00A404.
@article{osti_1501749,
title = {Radiative cooling for low-bandgap photovoltaics under concentrated sunlight},
author = {Zhou, Zhiguang and Wang, Ze and Bermel, Peter},
abstractNote = {Radiative cooling is a uniquely compact and passive cooling mechanism. Significant applications can be found in energy generation, particularly concentrating photovoltaics (CPV) and thermophotovoltaics (TPV). Both rely on low-bandgap PV cells that experience significant reductions in performance and lifetime when operating at elevated temperatures. This issue creates a significant barrier to widespread adoption. To address this challenge, we demonstrate enhanced radiative cooling for low-bandgap PV cells under concentrated sunlight for the first time. A composite material stack is used as the radiative cooler. Enhanced radiative cooling reduces operating temperatures by 10 °C, translating into a relative increase of 5.7% in open-circuit voltage and an estimated increase of 40% in lifetime at 13 suns. By using a model, we also estimate that the same setup could achieve an improvement of 34% in open-circuit voltage for 35 suns, which could reduce levelized costs of energy up to 33% for high-activation energy failure modes. The radiative cooling enhancement demonstrated here is a simple and straightforward approach, which can be generalized to other optoelectronic systems.},
doi = {10.1364/OE.27.00A404},
journal = {Optics Express},
number = 8,
volume = 27,
place = {United States},
year = {2019},
month = {3}
}
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DOI: 10.1364/OE.27.00A404
DOI: 10.1364/OE.27.00A404
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