• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.33-42
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• 2001

The paper discusses the modelling of the thermal storage roof with the air circulation system. In this system, the fully glazed absorber plate is put on the top of the conventional pitch roof made of massive concrete and acts as a solar air heater. Solar radiation collected into absorber is stored in the roof structure by radiation and convection so that it reduces the nighttime heating load through the roof. Another part of the energy is also transmitted to internal air drawn into the channel and is then introduced Into the room. To analysis the system, the energy balance equations are developed and are solved using a finite difference method. The calculation results show a good agreement with the measured ones obtained from our experiments. From the results, it is seen that the thermal storage roof with the air circulation system reduces significantly the conductive heat loss compared with that for the conventional roof and has the instantaneous solar collection efficiency of about 30%.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.57-66
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• 2011

A Photovoltaic/Thermal(PVT) solar system consists of PV module and thermal absorber plate which convert the absorbed solar radiation into electricity and heat. Meaningful researches and development (R&D) on the PVT technologies have been performed since the 1970s. This paper presents a review of the previous works covering the various types of PVT and their performance analysis in terms of electrical and thermal efficiency. This review compares electrical and thermal efficiency of the different types of PVT collectors and analyzes the parameters affecting PVT performance. Based on the literature review, box channel type PVT with unglazed, or flat plate PVT with glazed have the highest efficiency among them. From the literature review, R&D should be carried out aiming at improving their overall electrical and thermal efficiency, cutting down the cost, and making them more competitive in the energy consumption market.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.1237-1245
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• 1993

In this study, a model of a flat plate solar collector using a heat pipe was manufactured and tested to investigate such operational characteristics of the present system of solar collector as start-up process, temperature distribution on the absorber plate and operation of the heat pipe. Moreover, collector efficiency was measured for 20-30 minutes of operation at various conditions of weather and the result was compared with that tested by Hill et. a. for a flat plate solar collector using direct circulation of coolant. Some results obtained in this study could be summarized as follows. (1) The required time for the initial start-up process was about 5-6 minutes, but the heat pipe began to operate as soon as the absorber plate was exposed to solar radiation. (2) On the absorber plate, the temperature distributions in axial direction maintained nearly constant, while temperature distributions in transversal direction showed smooth decrease with $3-5^{\cird}C$ along with solar radiation. (3) Thermal inertia of the collector system had a favorable effect to damp the turbulent variation of solar radiation. (4) The collector efficiency of the present system showed nearly the same tendency but a decrease of about 10% compared with that using direct circulation of coolant.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.04a
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• pp.250-255
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• 2011

A Photovoltaic/Thermal(PVT) solar system consists of PV module and thermal absorber plate which convert the absorbed solar radiation into electricity and heat. Meaningful researches and development (R&D) on the PVT technologies have been performed since the 1970s. This paper presents a review of the previous works covering the various types of PVT and their performance analysis in terms of electrical and thermal efficiency. This review compares electrical and thermal efficiency of the different types of PVT collectors and analyzes the parameters affecting PVT performance. Based on the literature review, box charmel type PVT with unglazed, or flat plate PVT with glazed have the highest efficiency among them. From the literature review, R&D should be carried out aiming at improving their overall electrical and thermal efficiency and cutting down the cost, making them more competitive in the energy consumption market.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.19-25
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• 2004

A numerical study is performed to investigate the effect of sun tracking on the thermal performance of the evacuated compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) collectors. The evacuated CPC collectors consist of a two-layered glass tube, a copper tube and a reflector. The collector has a copper tube as an absorber and a reflector inside a glass tube. The water is used as a working fluid. The length and the diameter of the glass tube are 1,700mm and 70mm, respectively. The length and the diameter of the copper tube are 1,700mm and 25.4mm, respectively. Ray tracing analysis is carried out in order to compare absorbed heat fluxes on the absorber surface of the stationary and tracking collectors. The collected energy is calculated and compared with that on a fixed surface tilted at $35^{\circ}$ on the ground and facing south. The results indicate that the collected solar energy of the sun tracking system is significantly larger than that of a stationary collector. The sun tracking evacuated CPC collectors show a better performance with an increase in the thermal efficiency of up to 14% compared with an identical stationary collector.

• Advances in Energy Research
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.299-323
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• 2016

Cylindrical parabolic solar concentrators of small concentration ratio are attractive options for working temperatures around $120^{\circ}C$. The heat gained can be utilized in many applications such as air conditioning, space heating, heating water and many others. These collectors can be easily manufactured and do not need to track the sun continuously. Using a heat pipe as a solar absorber makes the system more compact and easy to install. This study is devoted to modeling a system of cylindrical parabolic solar concentrators of small concentration ratio (around 5) fitted with a heat pipe absorber with a porous wick. The heat pipe is surrounded by evacuated glass tube to reduce thermal losses from the heat pipe. The liquid and vapor flow equations, energy equation, the internal and external boundary conditions were taken into consideration. The system of equations was solved and the numerical results were validated against available experimental and numerical results. The validated heat pipe model was inserted in an evacuated transparent glass tube as the absorber of the cylindrical parabolic collector. A calculation procedure was developed for the system, a computer program was developed and tested and numerical simulations were realized for the whole system. An experimental solar collector of small concentration, fitted with evacuated tube heat pipe absorber was constructed and instrumented. Experiments were realized with the concentrator axis along the E-W direction. Results of the instantaneous efficiency and heat gain were compared with numerical simulations realized under the same conditions and reasonably good agreement was found.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.31 no.11
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• pp.619-625
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• 2021

Cu₂ZnSn(S,Se)₄ (CZTSSe) based thin-film solar cells have attracted growing attention because of their earth-abundant and non-toxic elements. However, because of their large open-circuit voltage (V_oc)-deficit, CZTSSe solar cells exhibit poor device performance compared to well-established Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se)₂ (CIGS) and CdTe based solar cells. One of the main causes of this large V_oc-deficit is poor absorber properties for example, high band tailing properties, defects, secondary phases, carrier recombination, etc. In particular, the fabrication of absorbers using physical methods results in poor surface morphology, such as pin-holes and voids. To overcome this problem and form large and homogeneous CZTSSe grains, CZTSSe based absorber layers are prepared by a sputtering technique with different RTA conditions. The temperature is varied from 510 ℃ to 540 ℃ during the rapid thermal annealing (RTA) process. Further, CZTSSe thin films are examined with X-ray diffraction, X-ray fluorescence, Raman spectroscopy, IPCE, Energy dispersive spectroscopy and Scanning electron microscopy techniques. The present work shows that Cu-based secondary phase formation can be suppressed in the CZTSSe absorber layer at an optimum RTA condition.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.49-56
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• 2014

In this study, the generation efficiency of the limited area of a concentrator solar cell was increased by using a solar concentrator and a tracking device. Heat generated by the solar cell was collected using a thermal absorber for supplying hot water or heating. Thus, the concentrator solar cell system provided electricity and heat simultaneously. Tracking of the sun by detecting the sun's position, repositioning of heating device towards the east after sunset, and shutting down of system after sunset were successfully implemented using an illuminance sensor (CdS) and Simulink, a commercial software package. We performed parametric analysis of the velocity, fin installation, and entrance location with respect to the operating temperature of the concentrator solar cell. A heat transfer simulation model was developed for comparing the actual temperature profiles of the concentrator solar cell and thermal absorber, and good agreement was found between the results of the simulations and the experiments.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.97-97
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• 2013

Recently, Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 (CZTSS), which is one of the In- and Ga- free absorber materials, has been attracted considerable attention as a new candidate for use as an absorber material in thin film solar cells. The CZTSS-based absorber material has outstanding characteristics such as band gap energy of 1.0 eV to 1.5 eV, high absorption coefficient on the order of 104 cm-1, and high theoretical conversion efficiency of 32.2% in thin film solar cells. Despite these promising characteristics, research into CZTSS based thin film solar cells is still incomprehensive and related reports are quite few compared to those for CIGS thin film solar cells, which show high efficiency of over 20%. I will briefly overview the recent technological development of CZTSS thin film solar cells and then introduce our research results mainly related to sputter based process. CZTSS thin film solar cells are prepared by sulfurization of stacked both metallic and sulfide precursors. Sulfurization process was performed in both furnace annealing system and rapid thermal processing system using S powder as well as 5% diluted H2S gas source at various annealing temperatures ranging from $520^{\circ}C$ to $580^{\circ}C$. Structural, optical, microstructural, and electrical properties of absorber layers were characterized using XRD, SEM, TEM, UV-Vis spectroscopy, Hall-measurement, TRPL, etc. The effects of processing parameters, such as composition ratio, sulfurization pressure, and sulfurization temperature on the properties of CZTSS absorber layers will be discussed in detail. CZTSS thin film solar cell fabricated using metallic precursors shows maximum cell efficiency of 6.9% with Jsc of 25.2 mA/cm2, Voc of 469 mV, and fill factor of 59.1% and CZTS thin film solar cell using sulfide precursors shows that of 4.5% with Jsc of 19.8 mA/cm2, Voc of 492 mV, and fill factor of 46.2%. In addition, other research activities in our lab related to the formation of CZTS absorber layers using solution based processes such as electro-deposition, chemical solution deposition, nano-particle formation will be introduced briefly.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.73-79
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• 2015

In this study, a thermal storage performance and characteristics of daily operation were investigated when the air and the liquid were heated simultaneously by a hybrid solar air-water heater that can make hot water as well as heated air. The hybrid solar air-water heater is kind of a flat plate solar collector that can make hot water and heated air by installing air channel beneath absorber plate of traditional flat plate solar collector for hot water. As a result of daily operation, maximum water temperature reached in a thermal storage was shown $44^{\circ}C$ on 73kg/h of air mass flow rate and about $40^{\circ}C$ on 176kg/h of air mass flow rate. Thus, the necessity of heating water in thermal storage by operating only liquid side was confirmed when the temperature of liquid in thermal storage is lower than we need. In case of efficiency investigated on daily operation, the thermal efficiency of the liquid side was decreased with increment of the inlet liquid temperature and decrement of the solar radiation, but efficiency of the air side was increased with increment of inlet liquid temperature difference as the traditional solar air heater. Total thermal efficiency of the collector was shown from 65.85% to 78.23% and it was decreased with increment of the inlet liquid temperature and decrement of solar radiation same as the traditional system.