Concentrator photovoltaic technology (CPV) use solar concentrators to maximize incident solar energy and hence create more electricity per unit area. However, increasing the solar incident irradiance raises the temperature of the solar cell and consequently reduces its efficiency. The current study uses the Thermo Electric Generator (TEG) as a passive cooling system to reduce the CPV surface temperature and use the waste heat energy to generate additional electricity. The study also compared the performance of a hybrid CPV-TEG to the baseline uncooled CPV. The results showed that under standard operating conditions, the uncooled MJ solar cell could not be exposed to solar radiation concentrations greater than 18.25 suns, with maximum electrical output of 0.7 W/cm2 . In contrast, the hybrid CPV/TEG system can operate at solar radiation concentrations up to 37.60 suns, and thus the resulting power is maximized to reach 1.433 W/cm2 . |
