A case study of system power efficiency loss mechanisms in a multijunction, spectral splitting, concentrator solar cell system

In multijunction solar cell concentrator systems, it is important for system and cell designers to understand the relative magnitude of each loss mechanism. This investigation of potential system power efficiency improvements for a high-efficiency concentrator system focuses on quantifying the effects that various known loss mechanisms have on the overall system performance. Each of the loss mechanisms that were investigated play a part in the degradation of the device's performance and each of these losses can be reduced by appropriate engineering. This paper will address the extensive optimization of the system power efficiency of a multijunction concentrator solar cell system for the DARPA very high efficiency solar cell (VHESC) project. These results are useful to the system and cell designers and guide the efforts to reduce losses and to maximize the system power efficiency.