A protective film to reduce the temperature of 3.5 ° C solar modules
According to PV Magazine International
Scientists from the State University of Southern Urals (Susu), Russia, announced in March that they patented new technology to prevent photovoltaic modules from overheating.The proposed technique consists of a holographic film based on prismatic concentrators called "prismacons", which consists of a transparent material containing holographic lenses of very small dimensions.At the time, it was claimed to be able to considerably reduce the operating temperature of solar panels, including thermophotovoltaic devices, and improve the efficiency of photovoltaic modules even in cloudy weather.
A few months later, the same scientists, supported by other researchers from Malaysia Pahang (UMP) and Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India developed a thermal model to assess the performance of the new thermoprotective film anddecided to reveal more technical details on the film.
The research group explained that the holographic film, which can simply be laminated on the surface of the panel, works by reflecting the infrared rays of its metallic upper layer, which prevents the overheating module.Its heart consists of a layer made up of tiny mini-pyramids/spectral concentrators capable of absorbing sunlight and refracting it before directing it on the solar cell by internal reflection, whatever the angle of incidence.
The technique has been tested in standard lighting conditions on a 100 W monocrystalline panel mounted with an angle of tilt of 45 degrees and located in Qurghonteppa, Tajikistan.The performance of a reference panel with the same characteristics, but without a holographic film, were also tested for comparison purposes.
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The operating temperature of the module with the film has proven between 32 and 65 degrees Celsius, and that of the panel without film between 35 and 75 degrees Celsius."The reduction in the temperature of the surface of the silicon is 3.54 degrees Celsius, according to the data analyzed in this work," said scientists."According to the results of the simulation, even a small temperature difference considerably improves the performance of electrical energy production in larger solar systems in hot and lukewarm climatic conditions."
They explained, once again, that the spraying of rare land metals on the upper side of the holographic film is what makes it capable of thinking and absorbing the infrared radiation of the solar spectrum, but they still have notspecified what type of rare land metals were used.
The holographic film has been described in the article "Thermal Model of A Photovoltaic Module With Heat-Protective Film", published in Case Studies in Thermal Engineering.In the future, the research team indicated that it wanted to assess the costs of the new technique and improve the thermal model so that it can predict more precisely the temperature and the output power of the photovoltaic modules with filters in D'Other climates.
Holographic films are flexible and very fine plastic films that can be laminated on different types of materials.They can diffract the usable frequencies of solar light and direct the energy generated to solar cells.Their application in research on photovoltaics is not new since several types of films and holographic patterns have already been tested in PV and CPV devices.However, technology has not yet been developed for commercial production.
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