Elisa Kaiser from Fraunhofer ISE receives Young Scientist Award at CPV-18 Conference

At the 18th International Conference on Concentrator Photovoltaic Systems (April 25-27, Miyazaki, Japan), Elisa Kaiser from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE was awarded the Young Scientist Award. The Conference Chair honored her presentation on the topic “Effects of Manufacturing Tolerances on Micro-CPV Module Performance”.

© Fraunhofer ISE
View into a micro-CPV prototype module developed at Fraunhofer ISE. Nine miniature 5-junction concentrator solar cells, each equipped with a small glass spherical lens, are illuminated by a 1000-fold concentrating lens plate above.

In her work, Elisa Kaiser and her co-authors Dr. Peter Schöttl, Maike Wiesenfarth, Dr. Peter Nitz and Dr. Henning Helmers investigated how deviations in module fabrication can influence so-called micro-scale concentrator photovoltaic modules. Such micro-CPV modules use advanced packaging processes originally developed for other industries such as micro-electronics, display technology and advanced printed circuit board technology.

In addition to this investigation, Elisa Kaiser presented a module prototype with a promising efficiency of 35.6% measured outdoors under prevailing conditions in Freiburg, Germany. “This result demonstrates impressively the potential of the micro-CPV approach: The implementation of additive manufacturing, parallelized placement of miniaturized components and self-alignment promises significant cost reduction for CPV and will benefit from learning curves in other industries. At the same time, the amount of required semiconductor material is reduced by a factor of 1000, and the experimental results by Elisa demonstrate that highest module efficiencies can still be reached”, says Dr. Henning Helmers, Deputy Head of the Department III-V Photovoltaics and Concentrator Technology and leader of the research team.

The work was funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) under the “micro-CPV” project (03EE1046A).

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