Angle Dependent Reflectance and Performance of Solar Cells and Absorbers

Abstract

In this thesis, the reflectance was measured for angles from 10 deg to 80 deg for different n-type silicon based solar cells and for solar absorbers. The measurements were done with unpolarized, p polarized and s polarized light. The reflectance results show that both the solar cells and solar absorbers perform well under small variation from perpendicular angle well but as the angle of incidence increase substantially, the reflectance also increase significant. The Cary 5000 Spectrophotometer located at UiT the Arctic University of Norway was used to perform all reflectance measurements.

The thesis includes two comparison studies. The first compares how the solar position throughout the day during three different dates(15th of april, 15th og june and 15th of september) in Tromsø and Rome changes and affects the absorbance of a nickel aluminum solar absorber. The study shows that the solar absorber performs best in Rome in spring and autumn, while the solar absorber performs best in Tromsø in the summer. The second study uses angle dependent absorbance to see how much of the irradiance during the day that is lost. The day chosen was 17th of april, and the study shows a significant loss in irradiance as the day goes. The irradiance data used was retrieved from the Solar Edge monitoring system located at UiT.