Comparative thermal analysis of solar cells mounted on ceramic and metallic carriers and their optimization for CPV applications

Concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) systems dramatically reduce the size of the solar cell. However, they add thermal load to the solar cell which reduces its efficiency. This reduction is due to an increase in temperature, which is largely dependent on the thermal characteristics of the solar cell carrier. From 1 to 2000X solar concentration, we conducted thermal finite element simulations to determine the temperature of a 1 cm² solar cell. The thermal behavior of a solar cell mounted upon a ceramic carrier and a metallic carrier are compared. The metallic carrier demonstrates better thermal performance than the ceramic carrier, in which the temperature of the cell is found to be ΔT= -60.2K at 500X and ΔT = -120.4K at 1000X with respect to the ceramic carrier. It was determined that the optimum size of the copper plate of a metallic carrier was 25.1 mm of side length and 1.12 mm of thickness for a cell temperature of 320.9K at a concentration factor of 500X.