LUMINESCENT SOLAR CONCENTRATORS

Marc Baldo
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
baldo@mit.edu
http://softsemi.mit.edu
http://rle.mit.edu/excitonics

World Bank May 20th , 2010

 COST BREAKDOWN FOR SOLAR ELECTRICITY:
Trend: Installation is an increasing fraction of installed costs….
1MW system size

Module costs reduced by low

cost manufacturing & cell
Installation efficiency.
Inverter, charge
controller,
breaker, cables,
mounting
Real estate
Labor
System integrator
65%
margins
Permitting, design,
shipping
Warranty
Maintenance
Installation costs scale ~90% with area.
Installation costs reduced by economies of
scale and cell efficiency.
COST BREAKDOWN FOR SOLAR ELECTRICITY:

1MW system size

65%

Three aims

1. High efficiency (helps both module & balance of system)

2. Low cost manufacturing (helps module cost)

3. Building integrated (helps balance of system)

 1. HIGHER EFFICIENCY?
Problem: high efficiency technologies are harder to make and expensive

Solution? Use solar concentrator to get more electricity from small (expensive cells)

Obstacles

•Mechanical – adds cost and

maintenance
•
•PV needs cooling
•
•Must be widely spaced to avoid
shadowing
•
•Needs direct sunlight
 2. MANUFACTURING & 3. BUILDING INTEGRATED?
GLASS - BASED SOLAR CONCENTRATORS
ped glass manufactured on a float (or similar) glass process

ficient, cheap & stable product.

lies on proven, low cost ($1-4/m2) manufacturing

ass coupled with high performance, surface-mounted Si solar cells.

esently US glass capacity is 6M MT/yr. Running at 85% capacity.

maining 15% US glass capacity equivalent to solar cell production of 13.5GW/year.

GLASS IS LOCALLY MANUFACTURED
Like other building materials, manufacturing cost often less than shipping cost.
 A NON-TRACKING GLASS-BASED CONCENTRATOR
– THE LUMINESCENT SOLAR CONCENTRATOR
W. H. Weber and J. Lambe, Applied Optics 15, 2299 (1976)
A. Goetzberger, W. Greubel, Applied Physics 14, 123 (1977)

Use photons to transfer energy

Simple construction: dye in or on waveguide

(glass)

solar
radiationair

dye
glass
photoluminescence
PV PVair

Two fundamental parameters:

η PL : the photoluminescent efficiency of the dye (photons out/photons
in)
η trap : the trapping efficiency (fraction of emitted photons confined
me examples of luminescent solar concentration

Our lab proto-types are 10x10x0.1cm. For

characterization, we attach a Sunpower Si PV cell
to one edge
Currie, Mapel, Heidel, Goffri & M.B., Science 321, 226 (20
Key metrics
G = geometric gain (area of face divided by area of edges)
F = flux gain. Geometric gain corrected for losses in the collector
 ‘MULTIJUNCTIONS’ USING LUMINESCENT SOLAR CONCENTRATORS

absorption,
Solar cell 1 abs. emission

emission
Band
gap
1

Wavelength [λ ]

absorption,
Solar cell 2 absorption emission

emission
Band
gap
2

Wavelength [λ ]

absorption,
Solar cell 3 absorption emission

emission
Band
gap
3

Wavelength [λ ]
Advantages
1. Each solar cell pumped ~monochromatically at band edge = minimal heating.
2. Higher solar cell voltages due to increase in optical concentration.
3. Lower the cost: Don’t use expensive semiconductors simply to gather light
4. Passive system that concentrates diffuse light & doesn’t need to track the sun
5. Smoothes out non-uniform optical excitation
6. Tolerant of fabrication defects
MORE ROBUST THAN CONVENTIONAL PV… BULLET DAMAGE TESTS
Bullets: 0.17 HMR FMJ
2375fps (4 mm diam.)
Shot from an H&R
rifle at ~50 feet.

Optical concentrators
show loss near bullet
hole,
but light collection at
edges remains strong.
BUILDING INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS (WINDOWS & SKYLIGHTS)

Existing technology: semitransparent a-Si or ‘waffle windows’

a-Si typically 6% efficiency

10% transmission. Very expensive.

Luminescent concentrators have better aesthetics (color tunability and image

transmission).
No need for metal oxide transparent contacts.
 RARE EARTH-BASED SOLAR CONCENTRATORS FOR SI SOLAR CELLS
(with Harry Tuller, MIT DMSE)
+ and Yb3+ is well known solid state laser material
level system, very transparent to own radiation (expect concentration factors >100
External Quantum Efficiency (%)

100
Sunpower EQE Nd:glass
emission
80

60

40 Nd:glass
absorption

20

0
300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200
Wavelength (nm)

ssion compatible with high performance Si solar cells. (much cheaper than III-V ce

Extremely robust and stable.

Needs sensitization to complete spectral coverage.

 NEODYMIUM-BASED SOLAR CONCENTRATORS FOR SI SOLAR CELLS cont…

It looks practical …

Nd is a ‘rare earth’ but actually Nd is the 27th most abundant material in

earth’s crust
(~ half as abundant as copper & zinc)

Nd2O3 (the relevant form) is approx. $10/kg at 99% purity.

Annual production 15,000 t

Development of Nd laser glass was driven

by National Ignition Facility ( NIF ).

NIF now contains approx. 10,000 pieces = 3,000

m2 of Nd-based glass

sensitization the expected power efficiency > 10 %.

d be competitive with First Solar CdTe solar cells .

Beam lines at the NIF

 DATA: Nd3+ phosphate glass

itation spectrum of Nd 3+ 2 % in phosphate glass

Optical quantum efficiency

1.0
absorption
0.8
total
emissio
0.6 n
edge
emissio
0.4 n
face
0.2 emission

0.0
500 600 700 800 900
Wavelength (nm)

Observed quantum yield ~ 90%

Power efficiency only ~3% due to poor overlap with solar

spectrum
DATA Sensitizer luminescence
Sensitized glass
8000

Counts (a.u.)
6000

4000

2000

700 800 900 1000

Wavelength (nm)

PROJECTIONS
P
ow
erc
onv
ers
io
neffic
ie
nc
y

Sensitized Nd-glass, 4 mm thick

1
Projected power efficiency
Absorption coefficient (cm-1 )

25 15%
E
0
.9 0.7

External quantum
13%
Q

20
post-absorption O

0.6

efficiency
0
.8
15 11%
10
0
.7
0.5 9%
0
.6
5 0.4 7%
0 0
.5
400 500 600 700 800 900 0.30 50 100 150 200 5%
Wavelength (nm)
0
.4
0 5
0
Geometric
10
0
Gain150 2
00
 CONCLUSIONS
•Separate solar energy conversion into optical and electrical parts.
•
•Use conventional solar cells for electrical part.
•
•Pre-process sunlight using excitonic systems & materials

xample : ‘Multijunctions’ using luminescent solar concentrators

absorption,
Solar cell 1 abs. emission

emission
Band
gap
1

Wavelength [λ ]

absorption,
Solar cell 2 absorption emission

emission
Band
gap
2

Wavelength [λ ]

absorption,
Solar cell 3 absorption emission
emission Band
gap
3

Wavelength [λ ]
 CONCLUSIONS

•Glass based solar concentrators promise high efficiency, lower

manufacturing costs & possibility of building integration.
•
•
•Starting to build larger team to push technology and understand system
issues, including engineers & architects (Sheila Kennedy)

Funding :
Chesonis (Material exploration & Simulation)
MITEI (Rare earth concentrators)

DOE Energy Frontier Research Center for Excitonics ($20M)

Unpublished work in this presentation done by:

Philip Reusswig: Rare earth concentrators
Nicholas Thompson: Rare earth concentrators (with Tuller)
Carmel Rotschild (post doc)
 WHAT ABOUT CHEAP BUT LOW EFFICIENCY SOLAR CELLS?

Use metric $/Wp : PV cost η p: power efficiency

(cost of PV cell divided by power $ Wp =
generated at peak solar ηpL L: solar power
illumination)

Example:
The CdTe process at First Solar
(>300 MW/year of 10% modules, throughput = 4µ m thick films every 40s)

Capital cost of CdTe evaporation = $0.04/Wp*

Semiconductor cost = $0.04/Wp*
shipping crate = $0.02/Wp*
Total manufacturing cost = $1.00/Wp †
* See Zweibel, Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells, 59, 1-18 (1999)
† Latest production data from First Solar

CdTe associated costs < 10% of manufacturing cost.

Remainder dominated by substrate (glass) and module costs (labor, wiring etc..).

New semiconductors/fabrication techniques alone will not achieve large cost savings.

Best option? Improve efficiency. 1% increase in efficiency = $0.10 / Wp

Including installation costs: 1% increase in efficiency > $0.30 / Wp