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The Interest and Potential of Ultra-High Concentration

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Next Generation of Photovoltaics

Part of the book series: Springer Series in Optical Sciences ((SSOS,volume 165))

Abstract

The benefits of the ultra-high concentration (>1,000 suns) are shown in terms of cost reduction, raw material availability and efficiency increase. The main challenges for the operation at such high concentrations, namely, (a) to keep a low series resistance; (b) to manufacture tunnel junctions with high peak currents and low series resistance; (c) to design and build advanced characterisation methods and tools; and (d) to increase the reliability of the devices are addressed and solutions for them are proposed. As examples of success in manufacturing multijunction solar cells at ultra-high concentration, we have developed and manufactured aGaInP/GaAs dual-junction device, which exhibits an efficiency of 32.6% for a concentration range going from 499 to 1,026 suns. This efficiency is the worldrecord efficiency for a dual-junction solar cell. Besides, the efficiency is still as high as 31% at 3,000 suns. We have extended this strategy tolattice-matched GaInP/Ga(In)As/Ge triple junction solar cells. At the current state of development, such cells show an efficiency of 36.2% at 700 suns. The theoretical optimisation shows that an efficiency well over 40% at 1,000 suns is achievable.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Nowadays, the new efficiency record has been achieved by Solar Junction (April 2011). Its cell measured a peak efficiency of 43.5% at 418 suns.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their gratitude to the current and former members of the Group of III–V Semiconductors of the Solar Energy Institute of the Technical University of Madrid (IES-UPM) for their close collaboration and involvement in the subjects covered in this chapter.

This work has been supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia with the CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010 program by means of the GENESIS FV project (CSD2006-0004). The Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación has also contributed with the SIGMASOLES project (PSS-440000-2009-30) and with the projects with references TEC2008-01226 and TEC 2009-11143 as well as the Comunidad de Madrid under the NUMANCIA II programme (S2009/ENE1477).

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  1. Instituto de Energía Solar, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Avenida Complutense 30, 28040, Madrid, Spain

    Carlos Algora

  2. Instituto de Energía Solar, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Ignacio Rey-Stolle

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  1. E.T.S.I. Telecommunicacion, Inst. Energia Solar, Universidad Politéchnica de Madrid, Avda. de la Complutense s/n, Madrid, 28041, Spain

    Ana Belén Cristóbal López

  2. E.T.S.I. Telecommunicacion, Inst. Energia Solar, Universidad Politéchnica de Madrid, Avda. de la Complutense s/n, Madrid, 28041, Spain

    Antonio Martí Vega

  3. E.T.S.I. Telecommunicacion, Inst. Energia Solar, Universidad Politéchnica de Madrid, Avda. de la Complutense s/n, Madrid, 28041, Spain

    Antonio Luque López

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Algora, C., Rey-Stolle, I. (2012). The Interest and Potential of Ultra-High Concentration. In: Cristóbal López, A., Martí Vega, A., Luque López, A. (eds) Next Generation of Photovoltaics. Springer Series in Optical Sciences, vol 165. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23369-2_2

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