Photovoltaic cell efficiency at elevated temperatures
Name
676836192-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
3 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
54eff387bce1f0d183b0386d83a05299
Author(s)
Ray, Katherine Leung
Advisor(s)
Gang Chen.
Date Issued
2010
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
In order to determine what type of photovoltaic solar cell could best be used in a thermoelectric photovoltaic hybrid power generator, we tested the change in efficiency due to higher temperatures of three types of solar cells: a polymer cell, an amorphous silicon cell and a CIS cell. Using an AM1.5 G solar simulator at 973 W/m2 we took the I-V curve of each of the three cells at increasing temperatures. We used the I-V curve to find the maximum power and determine the efficiency of each cell with respect to temperature. We found that the CIS cell had an efficiency of 10% and the performance decreased with respect to temperature in a non-linear manner. The efficiency at 83*C was a peak and the same efficiency as at 40"C. We found that the amorphous silicon cell tested had an efficiency of 4% at 450C that decreased with respect to temperature in a linear manner such that an 800C increase in temperature resulted in an efficiency of 3%. We further found that the polymer cell efficiency decreased from 1.1% to 1% with a 60*C increase in temperature, but that the polymer cell is destroyed at temperatures higher than 1 00*C. We determined that CIS or amorphous silicon could be suitable materials for the photovoltaic portion of the hybrid system.
Description
Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2010.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 23).
Subjects
Mechanical Engineering.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
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