Medium concentration system HSUN: demonstration results and application of diverse silicon cells

The HSUN sytem is a new medium concentration photovoltaic (CPV) system, developed and produced by WS Energia S.A. The low cost manufacturing and standard components used by HSUN® technology increases the potential of the system to reach grid parity. The system was designed to have stable performance and low cost manufacturing, with a total active collector area of 1.68 m2 and 6.3 kg/m2 of weight. Based on a 20X integrated parabolic trough with coupled reflective secondary optics, the system uses expensive high efficiency silicon cells designed to operate under high levels of radiation, a passive cooling integrated system and is integrated in 1-axis horizontal tracking structure, the WS CPV HORIZON®. The open-chain configuration ensures that the wind drag is greatly reduced, increasing the reliability of the tracker, while the optimized optics design enables a high acceptance angle and uniform distribution of radiation throughout the PV receiver, using low-cost and low-weight components. This paper is focus in two distinct areas: the HSUN system is and the demonstration results on field and a study of several silicon solar cells as a solution for the high costs associated to the high-efficiency solar cells used in the HSUN system.