Experimental comparison of asymmetric compound parabolic concentrator (ACPC), symmetrical CPC and non-concentrating solar photovoltaic

Compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) photovoltaic (PV) technology is a promising concept because it is a low-concentrating concentrator collector that can concentrate the solar energy onto solar panels and increase the efficiency of the solar panel at a lower cost. However, the incidence angle is not symmetrical across geographical regions and is not consistent throughout the year. As a result, an asymmetrical CPC configuration was used in this study to account for variations in the sun irradiation angle. This paper discusses the performance of asymmetrical CPC PV solar collectors in comparison to symmetrical CPC and non-concentrating solar PV (flat type). A novel high-performance low-concentration concentrator known as asymmetric CPC was introduced, designed and characterised experimentally to compare with symmetrical CPC and flat type solar PV panels. The electrical performance of the concentrators was analysed through an indoor experiment. The sun simulator was set to irradiance at 600W/m2. The asymmetric CPC was designed and constructed at an acceptance angle of 5° and 65° in pairs. The symmetric CPC was paired at 65° and 65° acceptance angles. Experiments show that the use of an asymmetric CPC outperforms the maximum power of symmetric CPC and flat type by 2.73% and 6.5%, respectively. The novel asymmetric CPC in this study significantly maximised the output power of both the conventional symmetric CPC and flat type non-concentrating PV panels. It has good potential as a low-cost static concentrator for building integration. In this study, the innovative asymmetric CPC outperforms the standard symmetric CPC and flat type non-concentrating PV panels in terms of maximum output power.