Experiment and simulation study on the flux distribution of lens-walled compound parabolic concentrator compared with mirror compound parabolic concentrator

• Lens-walled CPC PV module was fabricated and tested compared with the mirror CPC PV.
• The flux distribution of the lens-walled CPC was analyzed through the experiment results.
• Software simulation was carried out to verify the flux distribution.
• Formulation of the structure of the lens-walled CPC was described.

Preliminary lens-walled CPC (compound parabolic concentrator) was proposed owing to its larger half acceptance angle, but in fact, it has another advantage of more uniform flux distribution than mirror CPC with the same geometrical concentration ratio. In this paper, in order to firstly evaluate the flux distribution of lens-walled CPC comprehensively, a lens-walled CPC PV (compound parabolic concentrator photovoltaic) was fabricated and tested at the different incidence angles comparison with mirror CPC PV. The experimental results showed that the FF (fill-factor) of the mirror CPC PV dropped more sharply than that of the lens-walled CPC PV, which indicated that the lens-walled CPC has a more uniform flux distribution on PV (photovoltaic). In addition, a software simulation of the flux distribution between mirror CPC and lens-walled CPC was carried out. The simulation illustrated clearly this advantage of the lens-walled CPC, which directly demonstrated the experimental inference and would be significant for lens-walled CPC application.