Applied Energy 125 (2014) 21–27

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Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Design and investigation of a novel lens-walled compound parabolic

concentrator with air gap
Li Guiqiang a,b, Pei Gang a,b,⇑, Su Yuehong b, Wang Yunyun a, Ji Jie a,⇑
a
Department of Thermal Science and Energy Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, 96 Jinzhai Road, Hefei City 230026, China
b
Institute of Sustainable Energy Technology, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK

h i g h l i g h t s

 The structure of the lens-walled CPC with air gap was described.
 Lens-walled CPC with air gap can increase above 10% of the optical efficiency.
 Flux distribution of lens-walled CPC with air gap was analyzed.
 The total internal reflection led to a high optical efficiency.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Stationary solar concentrators can be integrated with building façade and roof, which can reduce the area
Received 11 August 2013 of solar cells and attain higher temperature heat resource, especially in winter for building application. In
Received in revised form 20 February 2014 this paper, a stationary lens-walled compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) with air gap was designed
Accepted 21 March 2014
and investigated to meet the application requirements. The lens-walled CPC with air gap differs from
Available online 12 April 2014
the original lens-walled CPC in that it has an air gap between the lens structure and the reflector that
maximizes total internal reflection and improves optical efficiency by reducing the optical losses of the
Keywords:
specular reflection. The simulation and experiment verified the function of the new structure, and the
CPC
Lens-walled
results indicated that the lens-walled CPC with air gap increases optical efficiency by more than 10% com-
Total internal reflection pared with the original lens-walled CPC. In addition, the flux distribution of the lens-walled CPC with air
Air gap gap is more uniform than that of the common mirror CPC. Thus, the lens-walled CPC with air gap not only
BICPV has a larger half acceptance angle and a more uniform flux distribution than the common mirror CPC but
also operates at a higher optical efficiency than the original lens-walled CPC. Thus, the lens-walled CPC
with air gap provides a realistic and valid solution to Building Integrated with Concentrating Photovoltaic
(BICPV) as a stationary concentrator and has good prospects for several applications.
Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
With the increase of building energy consumption, solar energy
as an inexhaustible clean energy, in combination with the building,
is one of the effective measures of building saving energy. The need
besides of electricity and hot water, also includes building heating,
refrigeration, dehumidification, which require higher quality heat
source, especially in winter. Building Integrated with Concentrat-
ing Photovoltaic/Thermal (BICPV/T) can to some extent meet these
requirements. The production of concentrating photovoltaic (CPV)
⇑ Corresponding authors. Address: Department of Thermal Science and Energy
Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, 96 Jinzhai Road, Hefei
City 230026, China (P. Gang). Tel./fax: +86 551 63607367.
E-mail addresses: peigang@ustc.edu.cn (P. Gang), jijie@ustc.edu.cn (J. Jie).
has seen a rapid increase [1]. CPV system can offer a host of advan-
tages over conventional flat panel devices, such as a higher electri-
cal conversion efficiency in the PV cells, better use of space, ease of
recycling of constituent materials, and reduced use of toxic prod-
ucts involved in the PV cells’ production process. Broad prospects
for application are available for Building Integrated Concentrating
Photovoltaic (BICPV). The saving cost of PV for a CPV system with
a low concentration ratio is not significant with the decreasing PV
price. BICPV provides additional advantages to the common CPV
advantages: First, the concentrator materials used in large-scale
manufacturing processes are still cheaper than the solar cell mate-
rials [2], and the cost is further lowered if the concentrator mate-
rials are used to replace structural elements. The Mont-Cenis
Academy (Fig. 1) in Herne, Germany, is a notable example of
Building Integrated with Photovoltaic (BIPV) being integrated into

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2014.03.042
0306-2619/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
22 L. Guiqiang et al. / Applied Energy 125 (2014) 21–27
Nomenclature
BIPV Building Integrated with Photovoltaic
BICPV Building Integrated with Concentrating Photovoltaic
CPV concentrating photovoltaic
Cg geometrical concentration ratio
semi-transparent facades. The project produces 650,000 KW h
annually with 10,500 m2 of solar cells. However, the project cost
could have been reduced by reducing the large surface area by at
least 50% and replacing the solar cells with cheaper concentrator
material by employing CPV systems [3–5]. Second, the combina-
tion of BICPV and thermal application for the building would result
in a heat resource that produces higher temperatures than flat plat
PV/T [6], increasing the prospects of solar energy use in buildings
especially during the winter season.
In practical application, stationary solar concentrators are more
suitable for BICPV application, which can be designed for fixed one-
time installations without being restricted by the tracking and con-
trolling system and thus minimize costs. Thus, BICPV can compete
with the standard flat plat PV. However, stationary solar concen-
trators also have certain disadvantages: Firstly, the acceptance an-
gle is limited by the absence of a solar tracking system during fixed
installation. Secondly, the acceptance angle and geometrical con-
centration ratio are inversely proportional. When the acceptance
angle is large, the geometrical concentration ratio is relatively
low, decreasing the high concentration. Researches have been done
on numerous stationary concentrators to widen their acceptance
angles based on certain geometrical concentration ratios. Uematsu
et al. [7] designed flat-plat static-concentrator photovoltaic mod-
ules. Mallick et al. [2,8] made a series of investigations into asym-
metric compound parabolic concentrating building facade
integrated photovoltaics. Yoshioka et al. [9] evaluated the perfor-
mance of two-dimensional compound elliptic lens concentrators
against a yearly distributed insolation model. Maruyama et al.
[10] studied the wedge-shaped static solar concentrator by using
total internal reflection. Sellami and Mallick [11] made the optical
efficiency study of PV crossed compound parabolic concentrator.
Muhammad-Sukki et al. [12,13] presented a mirror symmetrical
dielectric totally internally reflecting concentrator for building
integrated photovoltaic systems. Su et al. [14] and Li et al. [15]
made a preliminary simulation and verified via a comparison
experiment that with a certain concentration ratio, the half accep-
tance angle of a lens-walled compound parabolic concentrator
(CPC) can be widened.
Fig. 1. Multi-purpose building of Mont-Cenis Academy in Herne, Germany.
Iwith
sc short-circuit current of concentrating PV
Iwithout
sc short-circuit current of PV without a concentrator
gopt optical efficiency
hmax half acceptance angle
A significant issue for CPV and BICPV is the concentrating solar
cells’ non-uniform flux distribution, which causes hot spots and
current mismatch, thereby decreasing PV efficiency and service life
[16–20]. The parameters affected by the reduction of solar cell per-
formance as a result of non-uniform flux distribution include (a)
total photocurrent, (b) the cell’s short-circuit current, (c) the cell’s
short-circuit current density, (d) average illumination intensity, (e)
open-circuit voltage, and (f) fill factor [16]. CPC is a common solar
concentrator with non-uniform flux distribution. Although several
researchers have investigated higher optical efficiency by amplify-
ing the half acceptance angle of the CPC with the use of dielectric
materials [21–24], the refraction only modified the incidence angle
and failed to significantly improve the absorber’s flux distribution.
The lens-walled CPC improves the flux distribution of a mirror
CPC [25] and has a larger half acceptance angle as a stationary solar
concentrator, which is suited to BICPV. However, the original lens-
walled CPC has a lower optical efficiency because of multiple spec-
ular reflections. In this study, a novel lens-walled CPC with air gap
is designed to improve optical efficiency as compared with the ori-
ginal lens-walled CPC and the common CPC. The experiment veri-
fied the increased optical efficiency, greater half acceptance angle,
and improved flux distribution of the lens-walled CPC with air gap,
which would increase the optical efficiency 10% higher than the
original lens-walled CPC for BICPV.
2. Design principle
According to [14], the outside surface of the original lens-walled
CPC is directly coated. The refraction on the lens structure changes
the sunlight’s incidence angle direction, showing that the original
lens-walled CPC has a greater half acceptance angle than the com-
mon mirror CPC at the same geometrical concentration ratio. As
shown in Fig. 2, the optical efficiency of the original lens-walled
CPC is lowered because of the optical losses as a result of the multi-
ple specular reflections experienced by the lights prior to reaching
the base of the original lens-walled CPC. If the original lens-walled
CPC was not coated directly, total internal reflection occurs on the
outside surface since the incidence angles of parts of the light may
be greater than the critical angle on the outside surface.
To reduce the optical losses resulting from specular reflection
and maximize the total internal reflection, a novel lens-walled
CPC with air gap was proposed. The CPC structure is shown in
Fig. 3. The lens structure of the lens-walled CPC with air gap is sim-
ilar to that of the original lens-walled CPC. To form a new CPC, the
cross-sectional parabolic curves of a common CPC are rotated
around their top end points, pointing inward to a degree of 3°.
The area between the original CPC and the new CPC curves is then
filled with a dielectric material (e.g., acrylic material) to form a lens.
The original lens was not directly coated; thus, coating was added
to a common mirror CPC to form the lens-walled CPC with air
gap. The optical path of the lens-walled CPC with air gap is shown
in Fig. 4. When the actual incidence angle is greater than the critical
angle, light does not pass through the outside lens surface but is re-
flected directly because of the total internal reflection. When the
incidence angle is smaller than the critical angle, light passes
through the air gap and is reflected back by the mirror reflector.
 L. Guiqiang et al. / Applied Energy 125 (2014) 21–27
Fig. 2. Optical path of the original directly coated lens-walled CPC at normal
direction.
3. Simulation analysis
The commercial optical software LIGHTTOOLS was used to sim-
ulate the performance of the lens-walled CPC with air gap com-
pared with that of the original lens-walled CPC and the common
mirror CPC at different incidence/transverse angles. The incidence
angle is the angle between the direction of the incident sunrays
and the perpendicular to the aperture of the solar concentrator.
One thousands direct sunrays across the collector aperture were
traced at different incidence angles. PMMA (polymethyl methacry-
late) in the software database was chosen as the lens material. The
geometrical and optical parameters used for simulations are
shown in Table 1. The schematic diagram of ray trace simulation
on lens-walled CPC with air gap at the incidence angles of 0° and
25° are shown in Fig. 5 using 20 rays. It is clearly that when the
incidence angle is 25°, the lens-walled CPC with air gap can still
collect many rays. The optical efficiency can be explained as the ra-
tio between the obtained solar energy at the base and the incident
solar energy at the top aperture.
The results of the ray trace simulation for the CPCs at different
incidence angles were shown in Fig. 6. The geometrical concentra-
tion ratio 4 of the common mirror CPC can be calculated accord-
ing to the following equation:
hmax ¼ arc sinð1=CÞ:
The maximum half acceptance angle of the mirror CPC is 14.5°.
When the incidence angle is within 14.5°, the optical efficiency of
the mirror CPC is about 90%; when the incidence angle is greater
Fig. 3. Structure of the lens-walled CPC with air gap.
23
Fig. 4. Optical path of the lens-walled CPC with air gap at normal direction.
than 14.5°, optical efficiency is nearly zero. However, because of
lens refraction, the half acceptance angles of the original lens-
walled CPC and the lens-walled CPC with air gap are evidently
greater at about 28°.
The optical efficiencies of the lens-walled CPC with air gap are
significantly higher at about 21%, 20%, 25%, 28%, 22%, and 3% than
those of the original lens-walled CPC at the incidence angles of 0°,
5°, 10°, 15°, 20°, and 25°, respectively. This result indicates that the
design of the lens-walled CPC with air gap is reasonable and the to-
tal internal reflection significantly increases the optical efficiency.
When the incidence angle is lower than 5°, the optical efficiency
of the lens-walled CPC with air gap is similar to that of the com-
mon mirror CPC because part of the light rays in the lens-walled
CPC with air gap declined specular reflection losses because of
the total internal reflection. Therefore, the lens-walled CPC with
air gap has a further advantage than the original lens-walled CPC
and the mirror CPC with regard to combining optical efficiency
with the half acceptance angle.
The local concentration ratio is the ratio between the energy ab-
sorbed by the every part of the base and the average energy inten-
sity on the aperture of the CPC. Fig. 7 illustrates the local
concentration ratios from the center of the CPC base, which would
indicate PV flux distribution. A stable local concentration ratio
curve from the center of the CPC base indicates a more uniform
flux distribution. The lens structure effectively improves the flux
distribution of the mirror CPC, which is valuable in concentration
PV application.
In order to compare the CPCs more clearly, the comparison on
the solar energy collected monthly in Hefei (31°530 N,117°150 E)
was conduct, shown in Fig. 8. The hourly direct normal and hori-
zontal diffuse solar radiation values were given in EnergyPlus
weather data. For the diffuse component of solar radiation, the
optical efficiency may be approximately determined by optical
software simulation. The values found were 0.25 for the mirror
CPC, 0.3 for the initial lens-walled CPC and 0.37 for the lens-walled
CPC with air gap.
ð1Þ
On the months close to January and June, the solar energy col-
lected by lens-walled CPCs was higher than that by the mirror CPC,
which is because many incidence angles are larger than the half
acceptance angle of mirror CPC but are still within the half accep-
24 L. Guiqiang et al. / Applied Energy 125 (2014) 21–27

Table 1
Simulation parameters of the three CPCs.

Parameters Geometrical Front aperture Base width/ Concentrator Lens material refractive Reflector
concentration ratio width/mm mm height/mm index reflectivity (%)
Lens-walled CPC with 4 60 15 145.2 1.49 88
air gap
Initial Lens-walled CPC 4 60 15 145.2 1.49 88
Common mirror CPC 4 60 15 145.2 – 88

tance angle of lens-walled CPCs. However, the lens-walled CPC

with air gap has higher value significantly on the whole year be- 1.0
cause of the higher optical efficiency. Therefore, the air gap struc- 0.9 14.5 o
ture has improved the optical performance of lens-walled CPC. 0.8
0.7

Optical efficiency
0.6
4. Experimental verification
0.5
0.4
To illustrate and verify the advantages of the lens-walled CPC
with air gap, the corresponding comparison experiment was intro- 0.3
Lens-walled CPC with air gap
duced and analyzed. The modules were made with PMMA material 0.2
Initial lens-walled CPC
and the Computer Numerical Control (CNC) technology was chosen 0.1 Common mirror CPC
to shape the geometry profile precisely. The size is consistent with 0.0
that in the simulation. The specific materials and testing instru- -0.1
ments include: 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Incidence angle from normal incidenceo
a. Three similar-size single crystal silicon solar cells measuring
Fig. 6. Optical efficiency at a different incidence angle.
15 mm  70 mm were chosen to combine with three types of
concentrators. The performance parameters of the three PVs
under a 1000 W m2 solar simulator are shown in Table 2.
b. As shown in Fig. 9, common PMMA material was used as the 9
lens material, and the lens structure size is similar to that in Lens-walled CPC with air gap
8 Initial lens-walled CPC Common mirror CPC
the simulation.
Local Concentration ratios

c. Evaporated silver coating technology was used to construct 7

the reflector of the solar concentrator. 6
d. The I–V characteristics of the solar cells were derived with a
5
Keithley 2420 digital source meter (Keithley, USA) under a
450W Xenon lamp (Oriel, USA). The Solar Simulator 4
94043A (Newport Stratford Inc.) simulates a light intensity
3
of 1000 W m2 and a uniform flux of less than 2% in an
active area. 2

0
-8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8
Position from center of module /mm

Fig. 7. Local concentration ratios from the center of the module at normal direction.

The open-circuit voltages and short-circuit currents of the com-

mon mirror CPC, the lens-walled CPC with air gap, and the original
lens-walled CPC at different incidence angles are shown in Fig. 10.
At constant indoor temperature, the open-circuit voltages are at
about 0.58 V within the half acceptance angle. An incidence angle
greater than 14.5° presents a downward trend for the mirror CPC.
At a 15° incidence angle (greater than the half acceptance angle of
14.5°), the short-circuit current for the mirror CPC still has a value
of 0.6, higher than the theoretical value, because of the effect of
factors such as processing technology deviation.
The optical efficiency of the three concentrators can be obtained
according to [26]

1 Iwithsc
gopt ¼ ; ð2Þ
C g Iwithout
sc

where gopt is the actual optical efficiency of the CPCs, Cg is the geo-
Fig. 5. Schematic diagram of ray trace simulation. metrical concentration ratio of the CPCs, Iwith
sc is the short-circuit cur-
 L. Guiqiang et al. / Applied Energy 125 (2014) 21–27 25

Open circuit voltage/ V

Lens-walled CPC with air gap
Initial lens-walled CPC 0.60
Common mirror CPC 0.55
Solar energy collected ( KJ/m2 )

250000 0.50
Common mirror CPC
0.45
Lens-walled CPC with air gap
200000 0.40 Initial lens-walled CPC
0.35
150000 0.30
0 5 10 15 20 25 30

100000 Angular tilt from normal incidenceo

Short circuit current/ A

50000 1.4
1.2
0 1.0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 0.8
0.6 Common mirror CPC
Month 0.4 Lens-walled CPC with air gap
0.2 Initial lens-walled CPC
Fig. 8. The comparison on the solar energy collected monthly by CPCs.
0.0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Table 2 Angular tilt from normal incidenceo
Parameters of PVs in the experiment.
Fig. 10. Open-circuit voltages and short circuit currents of three different CPC-PVs.
Type Voc/V Isc/A Imax/A Vmax/V Pmax/mW Fill factor Efficiency/%
1 0.58 0.38 0.34 0.44 152.73 68.87 14.54
2 0.58 0.38 0.34 0.49 167.49 74.55 15.95
3 0.57 0.38 0.32 0.45 141.69 66.62 13.49 1.0
Common mirror CPC
0.9 Lens-walled CPC with air gap
0.8 Initial lens-walled CPC

rent of the concentrating PV, and Iwithout is the short-circuit current 0.7
Optical efficiency

sc
of the original PV without a concentrator.
0.6
The optical efficiencies of the common mirror CPC, the lens-
walled CPC with air gap, and the original lens-walled CPC at differ- 0.5
ent incidence angles are shown in Fig. 11. The optical efficiencies of 0.4
the lens-walled CPC with air gap and the original lens-walled CPC 0.3
in the experiment are lower than those obtained during the simu-
0.2
lation, which may be attributed to the processing technology used.
Due to some deviations, such as the deviations from the processing 0.1
and fabrication, the experimental outcome on the difference in 0.0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
optical efficiency between the lens-walled CPC with air gap and
the original lens-walled CPC is lower at the incidence angle of 0° Angular tilt from normal incidenceo
than that of the simulation outcome. But within the whole half Fig. 11. Optical efficiency at different incidence angles.
acceptance angle, the advantage of the lens-walled CPC with air
gap is still significant that the difference in optical efficiency be-
tween the lens-walled CPC with air gap and the original lens- maximum power than the original lens-walled CPC. Thus, the lens-
walled CPC in the experiment is similar with the difference found walled CPC with air gap has higher maximum power in addition to
in the simulation, which is significant evidence that the total inter- having a greater half acceptance angle. In addition, the maximum
nal reflection in the lens-walled CPC with air gap results in a higher generating power of the mirror CPC and lens-walled CPC with air
optical efficiency than the original lens-walled CPC. The tendency gap are similar within 14.5°.
of the total internal reflection from within the half acceptance an- In the process of concentrating the PV, the fill factor (FF) drops
gle in the experiment is similar with the tendency in the simula- slightly under concentrating condition because of the non-uniform
tion in Fig. 6. flux distribution [27]. If the PV’s non-uniform flux distribution is
The increased optical efficiency of the lens-walled CPC with air serious, the drop in FF is more apparent. The FFs of the mirror
gap is above 10%, which is consistent with the maximum generat- CPC-PV, the lens-walled CPC-PV with air gap, and the original
ing power (Fig. 12). The lens-walled CPC with air gap has a higher lens-walled CPC-PV at different incidence angles were divided by

(a) Mirror CPC (b) Lens-walled CPC with air gap (c) Initial lens-walled CPC
Fig. 9. Photos of three different CPCs.
26 L. Guiqiang et al. / Applied Energy 125 (2014) 21–27

500 In the comparison experiment to verify the simulation outcome,

Common mirror CPC
Maximum generating power / mW

Lens-walled CPC with air gap

the common PMMA was chosen as the lens material and evapo-
400 Initial lens-walled CPC rated silver coating technology was used in constructing the con-
centrator’s reflector. The differences in optical efficiency and
maximum generating power between the lens-walled CPC with
300
air gap and the original lens-walled CPC indicate that the lens-
walled CPC with air gap can reduce optical losses more effectively
200 than the original lens-walled CPC. Furthermore, the FF ratio be-
tween the PV combined with a concentrator and the PV without
100 a concentrator indicates that the lens-walled CPC with air gap
and the original lens-walled CPC both have increasing uniformity
0 of the flux distributions than the common mirror CPC. Therefore,
the lens-walled CPC with air gap as a stationary concentrator can
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 provide a realistic and valid way for BICPV.
Angular tilt from normal incidenceo

Fig. 12. Maximum generating power at different incidence angles. Acknowledgments

The study was sponsored by the Project of EU Marie Curie Inter-

national Incoming Fellowships (Grant No. PIIF-GA-2009-253945),
1.2
the National Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51178442),
1.1
and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.
1.0
The authors would like to thank Prof. Zheng Hongfei (School of
0.9
Mechanical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, China)
Ratio of fill-factor

0.8 for his assistance in the simulation software.

0.7
0.6
0.5
Common mirror CPC
0.4 Lens-walled CPC with air gap
0.3 Initial lens-walled CPC
0.2
0.1
0.0
0 5 10 15 20
Angular tilt from normal incidenceo
Fig. 13. Ratio of fill-factor of the three CPC-PVs divided by the original PV.
the corresponding FF of the PV without a concentrator under the
standard reference conditions. The ratio between the FF of the con-
centrating PV and that of the non-concentrating PV obtained indi-
cates the uniformity of the flux distribution.
As shown in Fig. 13, the FF of the mirror CPC within the half
acceptance angle (14.5°) dropped more significantly than those
of the lens-walled CPC with air gap and the original lens-walled
CPC. The lens-walled CPC with air gap and the original lens-walled
CPC both have increased uniformity flux distributions than the
mirror CPC. The lens structure not only attains a larger half accep-
tance angle but also improves the concentrating flux distribution
as compared with that of the common mirror CPC at the same geo-
metrical concentration ratio. The air gap maintains the flux distri-
bution advantage while significantly improving optical efficiency.
These advantages would be beneficial to improve PV output.
5. Conclusion
This study presents an improved lens-walled CPC design with
air gap based on the first-stage study of lens-walled CPC. This im-
proved design maximizes total internal reflection and has a charac-
teristic structure with an air gap.
The simulation design shows that the lens-walled CPC with air
gap not only maintains the great half acceptance angle advantage
of the original lens-walled CPC but also improves the optical effi-
ciency within the half acceptance angle. The lens-walled CPC with
air gap and the original lens-walled CPC both have similar concen-
trating flux distributions that increasing uniformity of the common
mirror CPC’s flux distribution, thus further optimizing PV output.
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