Experimental measurements of a prototype high-concentration Fresnel lens and sun-tracking method for photovoltaic panel’sefficiency enhancement

Concentrator photovoltaic modules are apromising technology for highly efficient solar energyconversion. This system presents several advantages due toadditional degrees of freedom that has been provided bythe spectral separation such as cost and mass reduction,increase in the incident solar flux on PV cells and performances.This paper has proposed a unique photovoltaicsolar cell system that consists of semi-Fresnel lens convergentstructure and a novel two axis sun tracking moduleto enhance the efficiency of solar cell by using less cellarea and energy losses. The grooves of this lens are calculatedaccording to the refraction and convergent anglesof the light easy for perpendicular incidence angle. Theupdate time interval during tracking causes misalignmentof the lens’ optical axis versus the sunrays. Then aninventive sun-tracking method is introduced to adjust themodule so that the incident rays are always perpendicularto the module’s surface. As a result, all rays will berefracted with the predetermined angles. This way thefocus area is reduced and smaller cells can be used. Wealso mentioned different module connections in order toprovide compensation method during losses, for networksand power systems. Experimental results show that usingsemi-Fresnel lens, along with the sun-tracking methodincreases the efficiency of PV panel.