Performance analysis of a mirror symmetrical dielectric totally internally reflecting concentrator for building integrated photovoltaic systems

This paper presents a mirror symmetrical dielectric totally internally reflecting concentrator (MSDTIRC). Here, its electrical and optical performances are investigated for building integrated photovoltaic applications. This concentrator is designed to tackle two issues: (i) providing sufficient gain in order to increase the electrical output of a solar photovoltaic (PV) system and (ii) reducing the size of the PV cell needed, hence minimising the cost of the system. These experiments carried out had the objective of investigating the characteristics of the cell with the concentrator, the angular performance of the structure, and the effect of temperature on the cell. In each case, the current-voltage (I-V) characteristics and the power-voltage (P-V) characteristics are plotted and analysed. An outdoor experiment was also conducted to verify the results obtained from the indoor experiments. The MSDTIRC-PV structure is capable of providing a maximum power concentration of 4.2× when compared to a similar cell without the concentrator. The deviation of the concentration factor from the geometrical concentration gain (4.9×), is mainly due to manufacturing errors, mismatch losses and thermal losses.