Future Prospects and Trends in Photovoltaic Cells and Panels Applications

A special issue of Photonics (ISSN 2304-6732).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (29 April 2023) | Viewed by 5360

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Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Faculty, Transilvania University of Brasov, Eroilor, nr. 29, 500036 Brasov, Romania
Interests: photovoltaic systems; hybrid systems characterization; concentrated light systems; hybrid system reliability
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The actual economic, political, social, and financial context imposes finding new sources and improving energy generation from renewable resources.

Photovoltaic cells and panels showed their potential to generate electric energy, but they can overpass the actual limits. Perovskite photovoltaic cells have undergone a very good improvement in efficiency, but researchers have to find the best solution to improve their stability. Following the ideas for achieving multijunction photovoltaic cells, used especially in concentrated light, nowadays Perovskite is used in tandem with Si to improve stability and efficiency. Another problem that has to be solved is to increase the acceptance level for photovoltaic panels, especially in inhabited areas, while keeping the efficiency almost unchanged. Transparent photovoltaic cells have a large potential for agricultural and building applications. Very few photovoltaic cells can be used in concentrated sunlight. Their number can be increased by using hybridization. Such a hybrid system can have the following structure: photovoltaic cell, thermoelectric generator and beam splitter. The last one has to optimally split the solar radiation for the two devices. A way to increase the efficiency of the solar thermoelectric generators is the layer deposition on the hot side to increase the absorbance of the solar radiation and have good thermal inertia.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to the following:

  • Perovskite photovoltaic cells
  • Si/Perovskite tandem photovoltaic cells
  • Quantum dot photovoltaic cells
  • Multijunction photovoltaic cells
  • Beam splitters and their application in hybrid systems (photovoltaic cells and thermoelectric generators)
  • Solar thermoelectric generators for natural and concentrated sunlight
  • New absorber layer to increase the efficiency of the solar thermoelectric generators
  • Transparent photovoltaic cells and panels and their applications
  • New design for the photovoltaic cells and panels to increase their acceptance

Prof. Dr. Daniel Tudor Cotfas
Prof. Dr. Petru Adrian Cotfas
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • photovoltaic cells and panels
  • perovskite photovoltaic cells
  • Si/Perovskite tandem photovoltaic cells
  • beam splitter
  • hybrid systems

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 2895 KiB  
Article
Enhancement of a Graphene-Based Near-Field Thermophotovoltaic System by Optimization Algorithms and Dynamic Regulations
by Yitao Sheng
Photonics 2023, 10(2), 137; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics10020137 - 29 Jan 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1705
Abstract
Thermophotovoltaics (TPVs), a heat recovery technique, is faced with low efficiency and power density. It has been proven that graphene helps add new functionalities to optical components and improve their performance for heat transfer. In this work, I study Near-field radiative heat transfer [...] Read more.
Thermophotovoltaics (TPVs), a heat recovery technique, is faced with low efficiency and power density. It has been proven that graphene helps add new functionalities to optical components and improve their performance for heat transfer. In this work, I study Near-field radiative heat transfer in TPVs based on a composite nanostructure composed of Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) sheet and a narrow bandgap photovoltaic cell made from Indium Arsenide (InAs). I introduce a new way to calculate nonradiative recombination (NR) and compare the performance with and without the NR being considered. By comparing graphene modulated on the emitter (G-E), on the receiver (G-R), and on both the emitter and the receiver (G-ER), I find the G-ER case can achieve the highest current density. However, constrained by the bandgap energy of the cell, this case is far lower than the G-E case when it comes to efficiency. After applying variant particle swarm optimization (VPSO) and dynamic optimization, the model is optimized up to 43.63% efficiency and 11 W/cm2 electric power at a 10 nm vacuum gap with a temperature difference of 600 K. Compared with before optimization, the improvement is 8.97% and 7.2 W/cm2, respectively. By analyzing the emission spectrum and the transmission coefficient, I find that after optimization the system can achieve higher emissivity above the bandgap frequency, thus achieving more efficient conversion of light to electricity. In addition, I analyze the influence of temperature difference by varying it from 300 K to 900 K, indicating the optimized model at a 900 K temperature difference can achieve 49.04% efficiency and 52 W/cm2 electric power. By comparing the results with related works, this work can achieve higher conversion efficiency and electric power after the optimization of relevant parameters. My work provides a method to manipulate the near-field TPV system with the use of a graphene-based emitter and promises to provide references in TPV systems that use low bandgap energy cells. Full article
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Review

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23 pages, 7323 KiB  
Review
Research Progress on Singlet Fission in Acenes and Their Derivatives
by Jingjing Li, He Cao, Zhibin Zhang, Shuo Liu and Yuanqin Xia
Photonics 2022, 9(10), 689; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics9100689 - 25 Sep 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3114
Abstract
Solar energy is widely used as a renewable and clean energy, and how to improve the photovoltaic conversion efficiency of solar devices has always been a hot topic. Singlet fission (SF), which converts one singlet exciton into two triplet excitons, is an exciton [...] Read more.
Solar energy is widely used as a renewable and clean energy, and how to improve the photovoltaic conversion efficiency of solar devices has always been a hot topic. Singlet fission (SF), which converts one singlet exciton into two triplet excitons, is an exciton multiplication generation process in organic semiconductors and is expected to be integrated into solar cells. Moreover, acenes are currently one of the most widely used and popular SF materials. We review recent research on novel acene materials and their developments in the field of solar cells, aiming to provide researchers with ideas for applying the SF process to solar cells. Full article
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