LIQUID SOLAR ARRAY

Electrical Engineering

PV concentrators appear to offer significant potential savings in cost over flat plate semiconductor PV systems. Due to the exponential growth of photovoltaics, prices for PV systems have rapidly declined in recent years. However, they vary by market and the size of the system. This potential advantage derives from the trading of large areas of high grade semiconductor and glass (silicon) for similar areas of cheap acrylic plastic in the form of a thin Fresnel lens or a thin glass mirror, plus a small area of PV cells (typically silicon) and a tracking mechanism. However, to date the potential savings have not yet been realized due to complexities arising mainly from the mass of the physical structure needed to provide adequate support for the concentrator, cells and tracking mechanism in adverse weather conditions. This paper shows a means whereby all major limitations, and costs, may be considerably reduced by adopting a configuration, termed the “Liquid Solar Array” (LSA) where each element of a floating array comprises a raft supporting a solar tracking lens and partially-submerged water-cooled PV cell assembly. An important feature of the LSA is that the lens can be submerged in windy conditions thereby reducing structural requirements in comparison to PV (land-based) concentrator cell arrays.

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