Holographic solar concentrator for terrestrial photovoltaics

This paper describes theoretical and experimental work performed on these high efficiency holographic concentrating and spectral splitting photovoltaic systems. The theoretical system efficiency was calculated to be 41% for a GaAs-InGaAs tandem cell when the hologram was recorded at 632.8 nm. A prototype system was used to demonstrate that it maintained a fairly constant efficiency over a period of 15 minutes without a heatsink; whereas the efficiency of a Fresnel system, using the same aperture and cell, dropped a factor of two within 30 seconds when used without a heatsink. Finally, a cost analysis of this system estimates it to generate power for 5.7 c per kWh when production levels reach 20 MW per year capacity.