학술논문

Accelerated stress testing of hydrocarbon-based encapsulants for medium-concentration CPV applications
Document Type
Conference
Source
2009 34th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC) Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2009 34th IEEE. :001826-001831 Jun, 2009
Subject
Photonics and Electrooptics
Power, Energy and Industry Applications
Engineered Materials, Dielectrics and Plasmas
Components, Circuits, Devices and Systems
Life estimation
Stress
Testing
Optical materials
Optical devices
Optical filters
Photovoltaic systems
Solar power generation
Costs
Optical polymers
Language
ISSN
0160-8371
Abstract
Concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) systems have great potential to reduce photovoltaic (PV) electricity costs because of the relatively low cost of optical components as compared to PV cells. A transparent polymeric material is used to optically couple the PV cell to optical components and is thus exposed to the concentrated light source at elevated temperatures. In this work polymeric encapsulant materials are positioned close to a Xenon arc lamp to expose them to ultraviolet radiation (UV) that is about 42 times as intense as sunlight. Furthermore, different glass types are used as filters to modify the spectral distribution of light in the UV range. A strong sensitivity of non-silicone-based encapsulants to light below ∼350 nm is demonstrated. Of all the materials examined in this study, the polydimethyl silicone samples performed the best. The next best material was an ionomer which maintained optical transmission but became photo-oxidized where exposed to the atmosphere.