Placement Angles for Luminescent Solar Concentrators: Simulating and Experimenting with Bifacial Photovoltaic Mosaic Devices

In this paper, we simulated and measured the performance of luminescent solar concentrator photovoltaic (LSC-PV) devices. Our model and experiments aimed at optimizing the performance of LSC-PV devices of the mosaic series upon variation of their interconnection scheme and angle with respect to irradiance source for various application scenarios. All the simulations and measurements are based on a module we designed earlier, namely the LSC bifacial photovoltaic mosaic device. In the first stage, we used ray-tracing simulation to simulate the optical performance of the LSC cubes and used a computational electrical model to simulate the electrical performance of the entire LSC PV device. In the second stage, we used a solar simulator to measure the performance of the LSC PV devices. In the third stage, the result of simulation and measurement were analyzed to explore the effect on LSC PV device orientation and the limitations of simulation. The results show the simulation mirrors to trends of the measurements and both show the LSC PV device has its highest performance at 40 degrees placement.