Assessment of the energy yield gain in high CPV systems using graphene-enhanced III-V multijunction solar cells

It was recently shown that the use of graphene as a transparent electrode deposited between the antireflection coating and the front grid of a solar cell can help mitigate resistive losses. Graphene-enhanced solar cells can be manufactured by retrofitting existing off-the-shelf multijunction solar cell designs, making its incorporation into HCPV systems transparent for the module manufacturer. This paper presents a theoretical evaluation of yearly energy yield gains in HCPV systems equipped with graphene-enhanced solar cells as compared with the same system using conventional triple-junction solar cells. These calculations show that the energy production gain when using graphene-enhanced modules may exceed 6% in reasonable locations for CPV (Fes, Madrid, Nicosia) and clearly exceed 7% in a good location such as Phoenix, whereas graphene integration cost would increase the €/Wp merit figure in 2-3%.