• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2022

Recently, photovoltaic (PV) systems have been gradually applied in eco-friendly vehicle applications to improve fuel economy. The relevant market is expected to continue to grow because the installation of large-capacity PV systems to other eco-friendly vehicles, such as electric buses and trains, is being considered. However, in a PV system, power imbalance between submodules and low power generation efficiency occur due to factors such as cell aging, contamination, and shading. To resolve this problem, various differential power processing (DPP) converters have been researched and developed. However, conventional DPP converters suffer from large volume and low efficiency. Therefore, to apply DPP converters to eco-friendly vehicles, increasing efficiency and reducing volume and price compared with existing DPP converters is necessary. In this paper, a novel DPP converter with an integrated transformer is proposed and analyzed. The proposed DPP converter uses a single magnetic component by integrating transformers and secondary sides of conventional DPP converters. Therefore, the proposed DPP converter shows high power density and high efficiency, and it is suitable for PV systems in eco-friendly vehicle applications.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.16-20
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• 2015

Ag addition in chalcopyrite materials is known to lead beneficial changes in aspects of structural and electronic properties. In this work, the effects of Ag alloying of $Cu(In,Ga)Se_2$-based solar cells has been investigated. Wide bandgap $(Ag,Cu)(In_{1-x},Ga_x)Se_2$ (x = 0.75~0.8) films have been deposited using a three-stage co-evaporation with various Ag/(Ag+Cu) ratios. With Ag alloying the $(Ag,Cu)(In_{1-x},Ga_x)Se_2$ (x~0.8) films were found to have greater grainsize and film thickness. Device were also fabricated with the $(Ag,Cu)(In_{1-x},Ga_x)Se_2$ (x~0.8) films and their J-V and quantum efficiency measurements were carried out. The highest-efficiency $(Ag,Cu)(In_{1-x},Ga_x)Se_2$ solar cell with Eg > 1.5 eV had an efficiency of 12.2% with device parameters $V_{OC}=0.810V$, $J_{SC}=21.7mA/cm^2$, and FF = 69.0%.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.28 no.11
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• pp.743-747
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• 2015

In this paper, the power generation efficiency of the 4 [kW] fixed-concentrated type photovoltaic power generation system and that of the 4 [kW] single axis trace type photovoltaic power generation system were compared. For that purpose, the two types of photovoltaic power generation systems have been in operation for 1 year on an experimental basis. The amounts of power generated by the two types during the months of January through December and the characteristics of their operating times during the same period have been compared and analyzed. For the study, the type with higher efficiency was selected and the following conclusions have been reached. It was shown that the amount of power generated and the average operation times during the spring months of March through May are higher that those of the summer months of June through August when more sunlight is available. The reason for this phenomenon is thought to be that as the temperatures of the solar panel surface and the surrounding environment go up, the electric current decreases.

• Electronic Materials Letters
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.712-717
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• 2018

In this letter, we have introduced copper chloride ($CuCl_2$) as an additive in the $CH_3NH_3PbI_3$ precursor solution to improve the surface morphology and crystallinity of $CH_3NH_3PbI_3$ films in a single solvent system. Our optimized perovskite solar cells (PSCs) with 2.5 mol% $CuCl_2$ additive showed best power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 15.22%. The PCE of the PSCs fabricated by $CuCl_2$ (2.5 mol%) additive engineering was 56% higher than the PSC fabricated with pristine $CH_3NH_3PbI_3$.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.38 no.9
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• pp.757-762
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• 2014

A solar heat and power hybrid system can simultaneously generate electricity and thermal energy. In this study, several experiments were carried out with a solar heat and power hybrid unit. Then, a method to increase the photovoltaic efficiency and amount of thermal energy was suggested based on a comparative analysis. The experiment was conducted using only the photovoltaic system as a reference case, with the photovoltaic-thermal air system as a hybrid case. A numerical increase in the photovoltaic efficiency per $1^{\circ}C$ was suggested based on a comparative data analysis of these two cases. In this experiment, the surface temperature on the air hybrid system was $13.52^{\circ}C$ lower than that in the reference case, and the photovoltaic efficiency was increased by 5.09. The amount of thermal energy produced was 15.69 Wt per $1^{\circ}C$ difference between the ambient and outlet temperatures. In this paper, therefore, a photovoltaic efficiency increase of 0.34 per $1^{\circ}C$ is proposed for the air hybrid system based on the analysis of the experimental data.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.04a
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• pp.92-97
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• 2008

To survive in outdoor environments, photovoltaic modules rely on packaging materials to provide requisite durability. We analyzed the properties of encapsulant materials that are important for photovoltaic module packaging. The properties of Ethylene Vinyl Acetate(EVA) sheet in photovoltaic encapsulant materials have to meet conditions that are high optical transmittance, good adhesion and high cross-linking rate. The objective of this paper is to understand the property evaluation methods of EVA sheet. Through this research, we could confirm that properties of EVA sheet have an effect on durability and operating efficiency of photovoltaic module.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.1148-1151
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• 2005

Photovoltaic effects in organic solar cell were studied in a cell configuration of ITO/PEDOT:PSS/CuPc(20 nm)/$C_{60}$(40 nm)/BCP/Al(150 nm) at room temperature. Here, the BCP layer works as an exciton blocking layer. The exciton blocking layer must transport electrons from the acceptor layer to the metal cathode with minimal increase in the total cell series resistance and should absorb damage during cathode deposition. Therefore, a proper thickness of the exciton blocking layer is required for an optimized photovoltaic cell. Several thicknesses of BCP were made between $C_{60}$ and Al. And we obtained characteristic parameters such as short-circuit current, open-circuit voltage, and power conversion efficiency of the device under the illumination of AM 1.5.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.17-22
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• 2008

A low concentrating (< 5X) photovoltaic module with aluminum reflectors is fabricated and evaluated which is designed to reduce the affection of the high temperature to the solar cell modules preventing the efficiency lowering. As results, the output power is increased of 1.97X from the concentrating photovoltaic module which is designed with the concentrating ratio of 2.25X and to control the module temperature cooling the module by air circulation. Also, the effect of the concentrating module with aluminum reflectors on the conventional PV module is investigated at the field. The result shows the increase of the output power more than about 20% and the improvement of the module efficiency of 1.4X in spite of the increase of average module temperature.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.273-274
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• 2005

Photovoltaic effects in organic solar cell were studied in a cell configuration of ITO/PEDOT:PSS/CuPc(20nm)/$C_{60}$(40nm)/BCP/Al(150nm) at room temperature. Here, the BCP layer works as an exciton blocking layer. The exciton blocking layer must transport electrons from the acceptor layer to the metal cathode with minimal increase in the total cell series resistance and should absorb damage during cathode deposition. Therefore, a proper thickness of the exciton blocking layer is required for an optimized photovoltaic cell. Several thicknesses of BCP were made between $C_{60}$ and Al. And we obtained characteristic parameters such as short-circuit current, open-circuit voltage, and power conversion efficiency of the device under the illumination of AM 1.5.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.200-211
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• 2017

Conventional boost-full-bridge and boost-hybrid-bridge two-stage inverters are widely applied in order to adapt to the wide dc input voltage range of photovoltaic arrays. However, the efficiency of the conventional topology is not fully optimized because additional switching losses are generated in the voltage conversion so that the input voltage rises and then falls. Moreover, the electrolytic capacitors in a dc-link lead to a larger volume combined with increases in both weight and cost. This paper proposes a higher efficiency inverter with time-sharing synchronous modulation. The energy transmission paths, wheeling branches and switching losses for the high-frequency switches are optimized so that the overall efficiency is greatly improved. In this paper, a contrastive analysis of the component losses for the conventional and proposed inverter topologies is carried out in MATLAB. Finally, the high-efficiency under different switching frequencies and different input voltages is verified by a 3 kW prototype.