Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

Meeting the growing energy demands in a sustainable fashion is one of the greatest challenges of this century. This projects aims to evaluate a promising renewable energy source: concentrated photovoltaics (CPV). The configuration developed by our partner promises to offer utility-scale solar power at competitive prices, making it a viable alternative. It is based on large steel and glass structures that focus the incident light to reach over 1000x concentration onto a large array of high performance triple junction photovoltaic cells. The viability of this approach depends on structural, optical, optoelectrical, and thermal aspects, that will all be studied in this project. We will experimentally and numerically study the deformations due to meteorological loads, and evaluate their impact on non-uniform illumination of the cell array. The electrical behaviour of the cells under these conditions will then be characterised, along with the cooling performance. Integration of CPV into an urban grid will also be evaluated. If successful, this type of CPV system would become carbon neutral after only 79 days, providing years of power generation with no greenhouse gas emissions. By developing personnel with expertise in solar systems and supporting a local company to position itself in the global solar energy market, this project can have a significant impact on our environment and economy.