The Design Of The Prism Film On The Optical Concentrator For Photovoltaic Applications

As an application of the PV technology, building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) technologies have attracted an increasing interest in the past decade. One of these BIPV elements is the luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs). The LSC consists of a transparent plate embedded with luminescent dyes or inorganic particles, and the solar cells are attached on one or more sides. The incoming sunlight absorbed by the luminescent dyes or inorganic particles re-emits at a longer wavelength, and part of the re-emitting light trapped in the transparent plate reaches the PV cell attached on the LSC and convert it to electricity. However, the efficiency of the LSCs is still low at this stage. The surface loss on the top surface of the transparent plate is one of the main losses in LSCs. The prism film in liquid-crystal display (LCD) module is used to collimate the light in the module and enhance the overall brightness, and would be used in the LSCs to enhance the incoming sunlight to the solar cells attached on the end of the transparent plate. Then the design of the prism film is important. In this study, the ray-tracing simulation is used to investigate the optical characteristics of the LSC with the prism film covered on the top surface of the transparent plate. Different structure of the prism film will be considered to enhance the light reaches the PV cell attached on the LSC.