Design Method for Nonimaging Solar Photovoltaic Concentrators Using Genetic Algorithms

Off-grid solar chargers are one of the ways forward to achieve universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern electricity. To achieve this goal, the sustainability aspect of the solar chargers must be further improved. Nonimaging, static solar photovoltaic (PV) concentrators reduce the amount of PV material and thus the embodied energy and greenhouse gas emissions of the solar PV panel, improve its recyclability and reduce the use of hazardous chemicals during its manufacturing, recycling and disposal stages. A novel nonimaging solar PV concentrator named circular rotational square hyperboloid (CRSH) was recently proposed for portable solar systems for developing countries. To further reduce the material usage and production time of the concentrator while achieving an optical concentration ratio above 3x within the angles of incidence of +/- 40 degrees, the parameters of the design were optimised using genetic algorithms. The optimisation parameters are discussed and the influence of the objective function on the optimised design is presented. The genetically optimised circular rotational square hyperboloid (GOCRSH) concentrator shows an improved gain-to-volume ratio compared to the CRSH and to several nonimaging solar photovoltaic concentrators proposed for building integrated concentrated PV.