Introducing novel light management to design a hybrid high concentration photovoltaic/water splitting system

Jose Jh Videira , Keith Wj Barnham , Anna Hankin , James P Connolly (1, 2) , Matthew Leak , Jonathan Johnson , Amanda Chatten , Geoff H Kelsall , Ken Kennedy , John S Roberts , Alex J Cowan , Amandaj Chatten

1 UPV - Universitat Politècnica de València
2 Nanophotonics Technology Center

We present a novel way to utilize high-concentration photovoltaic (HCPV) radiative losses and diffuse light, otherwise unused in conventional HCPV systems, to power an Imperial College designed photoelectrochemical reactor (PECR) producing H 2 fuel through water splitting. A high efficiency photovoltaic (HEPV) is embedded inside a Luminescent Solar Concentrator (LSC). Edge emission from the radiative recombination loss mechanism in the HEPV is guided within the LSC to the PECR photocathode, whilst the LSC emitted light is guided to the photoanode. The photon streams can be independently optimised in intensity and wavelength. We demonstrate how photon streams with balanced intensity can be achieved.

Keywords: photoluminescence; luminescent devices; ray tracing; solar cells

Domains: Engineering Sciences [physics]

Jose Jh Videira, Keith Wj Barnham, Anna Hankin, James P Connolly, Matthew Leak, et al.. Introducing novel light management to design a hybrid high concentration photovoltaic/water splitting system. 2015 IEEE 42nd Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), Jun 2015, New Orleans, France. pp.1-6, ⟨10.1109/PVSC.2015.7356182⟩. ⟨hal-02635152⟩