Overview of Concentrated Photovoltaic (CPV) Cells

Chukwubuikem Chukwuka, Komla Agbenyo Folly

Electrical Engineering, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.

DOI: 10.4236/jpee.2014.211001                

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that renewable energy is one of the effective ways to fight global climate change and emissions not to mention the increasing price of fossil fuels. Among the various renewable energy sources which include wind, solar, biofuel, geothermal and tidal waves, solar power has attracted much attention especially here in Africa because of the abundance of solar radiation. A lot of studies have been done on various photovoltaic (PV) cells ranging from silicon to thin film and most recently multi-junction solar cells. In this paper, we focused on concentrated photovoltaic cells (CPV) which are promising ways of converting solar energy to electricity. It is expected that if the most cost effective ways of converting solar energy to electricity is used, both the cost of installation and the running cost of concentrated photovoltaic cells will equate the utility grid electricity cost in a few years to come.

Keywords

Inverted Metamorphic Multi-Junction, Non-Imaging Optical Concentrator, Concentrated

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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