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The Current Market Of Solar Concentration Systems

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Reductions in the cost per peak watt can potentially be made to PV technology by increasing the net flux of solar energy to a given cell area. This can lead to reductions in PV prices independently of advances in PV cell technology126. This application of solar concentration saturates carrier traps inside the material, while raising the thermodynamic efficiency limit. The saturation of traps means charge carries are more efficiently transported, leading to improved overall cell efficiency127. Furthermore, under concentrated illumination, the open circuit voltage is found to increase with the incoming flux and thus the overall power efficiency can be increased128,129. Moreover, under solar concentration, light is focussed onto a smaller …show more content…

The large cost of installation, high mechanical complexity and the large operational area required, mean geometric concentration is generally unsuitable for small scale distribution in the urban setting. Alternatively, optical concentration in a relatively small stationary system, without the problems associated with geometric systems can be achieved through the use of luminescent solar concentrators131.
Luminescent Solar Concentrators
Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) are devices for concentrating solar illumination for use in photovoltaics, with applications in a variety of other lighting purposes. Richard Lerner is credited with creating the original LSC in 1973, consisting of a solution of laser dye contained between two sheets of glass. However, his proposal was rejected by the National Science Foundation132. The first appearance of LSCs in the scientific literature is a proposal by Weber and Lambe (1976)133 who reported a ``planar solar collector utilising a luminescent medium to absorb radiation, which emits light at longer wavelengths for concentration onto a semiconductor solar cell ' '. They also compiled a list of the fundamental advantages to the LSC approach of solar concentration, namely: lack of solar tracking requirements, absorption of ambient light, reduced thermal load, and spectral narrowing of light, leading to the possibilities of spectral matching with coupled PV cells. In 1977 Goetzberger and

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