Experimental measurements of a prototype high concentration Fresnel lens CPV module for the harvesting of diffuse solar radiation.

A prototype concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) module with high solar concentration, an added low-cost solar cell, and an adjoining multi-junction solar cell is fabricated and experimentally demonstrated. In the present CPV module, the low cost solar cell captures diffuse solar radiation penetrating the concentrator lens and the multi-junction cell captures concentrated direct solar radiation. On-sun test results show that the electricity generated by a Fresnel lens-based CPV module with an additional crystalline silicon solar cell is greater than that for a conventional CPV module by a factor of 1.44 when the mean ratio of diffuse normal irradiation to global normal irradiation at the module aperture is 0.4. Several fundamental optical characteristics are presented for the present module.