TITLE:
Role of PV-Powered Vehicles in Low-Carbon Society and Some Approaches of High-Efficiency Solar Cell Modules for Cars
AUTHORS:
Masafumi Yamaguchi, Taizo Masuda, Kenji Araki, Daisuke Sato, Kan-Hua Lee, Nobuaki Kojima, Tatsuya Takamoto, Kenichi Okumura, Akinori Satou, Kazumi Yamada, Takashi Nakado, Yusuke Zushi, Mitsuhiro Yamazaki, Hiroyuki Yamada
KEYWORDS:
Solar Cell Powered Vehicle Applications, High-Efficiency Solar Cells, Multi-Junction Solar Cells, Tandem Solar Cells, Modules
JOURNAL NAME:
Energy and Power Engineering,
Vol.12 No.6,
June
30,
2020
ABSTRACT: Development
of highly-efficient photovoltaic (PV) modules and expanding its application
fields are significant for the further development of PV technologies and
realization of innovative green energy infrastructure based on PV. Especially,
development of solar-powered vehicles as a new application is highly desired
and very important for this end. This paper presents the impact of PV
cell/module conversion efficiency on reduction in CO2 emission and
increase in driving range of the electric based vehicles. Our studies show that
the utilization of a highly-efficient (higher than 30%) PV module enables the
solar-powered vehicle to drive 30 km/day without charging in the case of light
weight cars with electric mileage of 17 km/kWh under solar irradiation of
3.7 kWh/m2/day, which means that the majority of the family cars
in Japan can run only by the sunlight without supplying fossil fuels. Thus, it
is essential to develop high-efficiency as well as low-cost solar cells and
modules for automotive applications. The analytical results developed by the
authors for conversion efficiency potential of various solar cells for choosing
candidates of the PV modules for automotive applications are shown. Then we
overview the conversion efficiency potential and recent progress of various Si
tandem solar cells, such as III-V/Si, II-VI/Si, chalcopyrite/Si, and
perovskite/Si tandem solar cells. The III-V/Si tandem solar cells are expected
to have a high potential for various applications because of its high
conversion efficiency of larger than 36% for dual-junction and 42% for
triple-junction solar cells under 1-sun AM1.5 G illumination, lightweight and
low-cost potentials. The analysis shows that
III-V based multi-junction and Si based tandem solar cells are considered to be
promising candidates for the automotive application. Finally, we report recent
results for our 28.2% efficiency and Sharp’s 33% mechanically stacked
InGaP/GaAs/Si triple-junction solar cell. In addition, new approaches which are suitable for automotive applications by using III-V triple-junction, and
static low concentrator PV modules are also presented.