Investigation of the thermal performance of high-concentration photovoltaic solar cell package

The demand for energy resources to improve our quality of life continues to increase. However, the prices of Fossil Energy keep going up and the resources are limited. Therefore, more and more reusable energy resources are being developed. The foremost among these reusable energy resources is solar energy. A solar cell, powered by solar energy, uses semiconductors to transform light into electric power. The difference in structure between high-concentration photovoltaic (HCPV) solar cell and traditional solar cell is the usage of concentrated-light module to enhance the optic-electric transition efficiency. In general, under concentrated-light operation condition, the device temperature rises with increasing light concentration ratio. In other words, due to a decrease in open-circuit voltage as a function of increasing temperature, the system output power or energy-conversion efficiency decreases with the increasing temperature of the cell incorporated within the system. Therefore, thermal management has been an important issue for the package of a high-concentration photovoltaic solar cell. In this research, we first established a detailed finite element model of the HCPV solar cell package as a benchmark using ANSYS® finite element analysis program. The established finite element model can simplify and quickly resolve the thermal management problem of the HCPV solar cell package. We also performed Infrared (IR) thermography measurement experiment in order to validate the finite element model. After validation of the experimental results, we analyzed the variation of thermal performance under different design parameters of the HCPV solar cell package. Based on the simulation results of different design parameters, it can be found that the thickness of the heat sink plate plays important roles in the thermal management of the HCPV solar cell package, which indicates that the thicker the thickness of the aluminum plate, the lower the junction temperature of the HCPV solar cell package. Furthermore, the thermal conductivity of the test board and solder paste has a light effect to reduce junction temperature. The other result shows the capability of a protection gel not only to protect the die surface and wire bond but to also reduce cell temperature under a highly concentrated light condition.