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Abstract
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| Solar Thermophotovolatic generators have one of the highest limiting efficiency among the solar photovoltaic concepts (85.4%), however, this limit is obtained under a set of very restrictive constraints. Firstly a perfectly monochromatic radiation exchange between the emitter and the photovoltaic cells is assumed (which is assumed to have only radiative recombination losses). Secondly, the emitter must have an area much larger than the absorber (approaching infinity), to compensate the very narrow spectral range of emission (approaching zero) of the emitter. And finally an ultra high sun concentration (approaching the maximum concentration on the Earth of 46,050 suns), or a special kind of directionally selective absorber is assumed to minimize the absorber radiation losses. These constraints introduce significant technological issues that make the efficiency limit unachievable in practice. In this work we demonstrate how both spectral and angularly selective absorber combined with either spectral cut-off emitters (whose only emit photons with energies greater than a certain value) and/or black body emitters with back side reflectors PV cells, can achieve high limiting efficiencies, exceeding 60%. The main advantages of these designs are that they can be done using a planar geometry (i.e. absorber-to-emitter area ratio of one) and an optical system with a concentration factor ranging from very low (1-10 suns) up to high (2000 suns). The modeling is based on the detailed balance theory to provide the upper bound of efficiency. | |
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International
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Si |
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Congress
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TPV-9 World Conference |
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960 |
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Place
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Valencia |
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Reviewers
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Si |
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ISBN/ISSN
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3-936338-26-4 |
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Start Date
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09/09/2010 |
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End Date
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09/09/2010 |
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From page
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5531 |
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To page
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5535 |
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25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition |