Abstract

Project Title: Low Cost Solar Panel (LCSP)

Solar Systems is a world leader in electricity production from concentrated photovoltaic

power plants using dense array converter technology. Conventional photovoltaic products use
unconcentrated sunlight. This energy is quite diffuse so large panels of photovoltaic (PV)
material must be used. This requires large amounts of silicon and expensive photovoltaic
materials. As well, the panels are usually mounted in a fixed position as the cost of tracking
the sun for optimum output is difficult to justify.

Solar Systems reasoned that while PV is expensive, steel and glass are relatively cheap.
Therefore, if the diffuse sunlight were concentrated onto a small area of high efficiency PV
then the overall cost per unit of electricity would be lower than unconcentrated methods. With
this premise, Solar Systems designed and refined the concept into the LCSP(Low cost Solar
panel) dish concentrator PV unit

The LSCP has 112 curved reflecting mirrors mounted on a steel frame, which tracks the sun
throughout the day. The combination of mirror profile, mounting framework and solar
receiver are carefully designed to deliver concentrated sunlight energy to each PV module.
The tracking mechanism maximizes the amount of electricity produced.

The heart of the system is an array of close-packed PV cells that are located in the solar
receiver, suspended above the focus of the mirrors. The cells are mounted in a way that allows
efficient dissipation of thermal energy as well as extraction of electricity. Since PV
performance falls by around 1.7% for every 10°C rise in cell temperature and the sunlight is
concentrated 500x, effective cooling is critical to achieve efficient performance. The module
also incorporates electrical connections to deliver DC output as well as current and
temperature sensors for real-time monitoring.

Application:
• Scalability
• Eco Friendly
• Upgradeability
• Concentrated Energy
• Long Life
• Economy
• Power