Portable solar chargers are one of the technologies that can help to achieve universal access to electricity by 2030. However, the large number of solar photovoltaic devices required and their short life-span make achieving this goal a resource and energy intensive process. To reduce the embodied energy, the embodied carbon and the human and eco-toxicity potential of portable solar chargers, solar photovoltaic concentrators can be used. This paper proposes a new nonimaging solar photovoltaic concentrator design which has material efficiency, portability and off-grid use as its main feature. The main contribution of this paper is the design method of the new 3D nonimaging concentrator containing the parametric equation of the concentrator surfaces and the numeric optimisation of the design parameters. The developed optimisation program is based on genetic algorithms which parameters were determined experimentally in this paper. The concentrator design achieved with this method is 43% less material intensive than the most compact nonimaging solar concentrator available in literature. This design approach can be used to find concentrator designs with specific volumes, heights, concentration ratios, acceptance angles and optical efficiency. It is therefore a step towards more material efficient and more sustainable nonimaging concentrators and more sustainable portable solar photovoltaic systems.

This paper focuses on the embodied energy and cost assessments of a static concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) module in comparison to the flat photovoltaic (PV) module. The CPV module employs a specific concentrator design from the Genetically Optimised Circular Rotational Square Hyperboloid (GOCRSH) concentrators, labelled as GOCRSH_A. Firstly, it discussed previous research on life cycle analyses for PV and CPV modules. Next, it compared the energy embodied in the materials of the GOCRSH_A module to the energy embodied in the materials of a flat PV module of the same electrical output. Lastly, a comparison in terms of cost is presented between the analysed GOCRSH_A module and the flat PV module. It was found that the GOCRSH_A module showed a reduction in embodied energy of 17% which indicates a reduction in embodied carbon. In terms of cost, the costs for the GOCRSH_A module were calculated to be 1.71 times higher than the flat PV module of the same electrical output. It is concluded that a trade-off is required between the embodied energy and cost impacts in order to bring this CPV technology into the market.

In the last four decades there has been a significant increase in solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity, which makes solar one of the most promising renewable energy sources. Following this trend, solar power would become the world’s largest source of electricity by 2050. Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) systems, in which conventional materials can be replaced with PV panels that become an integral part of the building, can be enhanced with concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) systems. In order to increase the cost efficiency of a BIPV system, an optical concentrator can be used to replace expensive PV material with a lower cost option, whilst increasing the electrical output through the concentration of solar power. A concentrator called rotationally asymmetrical compound parabolic concentrator (RACPC) was analysed in this work under diffuse light conditions. Software simulations and experimental work were carried out to determine the optical concentration gain of the concentrator. Results from this work show that, under diffuse light, the RACPC has an optical concentration gain of 2.12. The experimental work showed a value of 2.20, which confirms the results with only a 3.8% difference.

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This paper evaluates the performance of a genetically optimized circular rotational square hyperboloid (GOCRSH) concentrator for low-concentrating photovoltaic (PV) application. The experimental analysis of 4 types of GOCRSH namely the GOCRSH_A GOCRSH_B, GOCRSH_Crh and GOCRSH_D, were tested indoor under standard text conditions of 1000 W/m 2 , AM 1.5G and at the temperature of 25 ˚C. From the indoor experiments, it was found that the prototypes were showing the maximum power point ratio under normal incidence of 2.9x, 2.6x, 3.9x and 2.7x with the GOCRSH_A GOCRSH_B, GOCRSH_Crh and GOCRSH_D respectively.