Design and development of compound parabolic concentrating for photovoltaic solar collector: Review

Despite about five decades of development, commercial solar energy has not yet unable to penetrate the electric and gas options. For this particular reason, designing compound parabolic concentrators-photovoltaic thermal solar collectors (CPC-PVT) continues until achieving similar or greater performance with a comparative cost. This paper outlines the various types of CPC-PV systems concerning design advantages and limitations. The article includes comparisons on used materials, optical tolerance and efficiency, and the range of the acceptance angle. The review focuses on the historical developments regarding the use of Fresnel lens for optimizing captured sunlight, 2- and 3-D CPC, parabolic trough, and materials used for coating. It is hoped that this review helps researchers to highlight the successful trends of designing CPC by sorting out the many layers and factors that are decisive in designing CPCs. It can be seen clearly the vast opportunities for developing better designs and utilizing the qualities of the material used for reflectance and absorbance. Flat plate collectors have shown an increasing drawback to deal with temperatures of more than 100 °C. The fixed orientation of CPC has a ydisadvantage due to the limitations of capturing sunlight; however, tracking mechanism could be employed to enhance the amount of the captured sunlight. The non-imaging system is also highlighted to show its efficiency over the imaging systems concerning larger accept angles, higher concentration ratios with less volume and shorter focal length, higher optical efficiency. However, for applications such as solar-to-electric conversion, imaging, and non-imaging Fresnel lens have shown almost same conversion factor. Throughout CPC designing, particular issues have to be considered such as the ratio of reflector-to-aperture size, the formation of hot spots, and the minimising of losing of multiple reflections concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) systems are still developing where new methods, designs, and materials are still being created in order to reach a low levelled cost of energy comparable to standard silicon-based PV systems. It is very important to note that non-imaging Fresnel lenses could bring a breakthrough in commercial solar energy concentration application technology very soon.