Numerical Modeling and Experimental Performance Evaluation of Solar cells under Concentration of Sun-light

Increasing energy consumption nowadays has caused consideration of renewable energies, in particular solar energy, using photovoltaic systems to be brought into attention. Using concentrating systems in order to increase radiation intensity on solar cells would cause increasing the power and hence decreasing the cost. Of these, systems with concentrating ratio of less than 10 are of great importance due to the usage of normal mono crystal solar cells with no complicated cooling systems. In this paper, the performance of a solar cell was stated by three models; ideal, mono diode and two diodes versions and the validity and the accuracy of models were evaluated by experimental results. Among three alternatives, the two-diode version showed more accurate results. Then, effect of concentrating sunlight on mono crystal solar cells were investigated experimentally. A mono crystal solar panel was modeled and variations in open circuit voltage, short circuit current and output power with changes in radiation intensity and panel temperature were simulated. The experimental results by a concentrating system were then compared with those of simulations. In these experiments, where concentrating of sun lights was achieved by using mirrors, radiation intensity and cell’s temperature, changed. By using a concentrator system, output power of solar panel has increased up to 1.9 times in comparison with standard conditions.