Optical Design of a 4-Off-Axis-Unit Cassegrain Ultra-High CPV Module with Central Receiver

Abstract

Ultra-High Concentrator Photovoltaics, UHCPV, with concentrations higher than 1000 suns, has been pointed by different authors to have a great potential for being a cost-effective PV technology. This Letter presents a UHCPV Cassegrain-based optical design in which the sunrays are concentrated and sent from four different and independent paraboloid-hyperboloid pairs optical units onto a single central receiver. The optical design proposed has as main advantage the achievement of ultra-high concentration ratios, using relative small mirrors, with similar performance values of efficiency, acceptance angle and irradiance uniformity than other designs.