Low-cost solar-encapsulant-on-glass Fresnel lenses for CPV applications

The possibility of using thermoplastic such as solar encapsulants as an alternative to silicone is shown for encapsulant-on-glass (EOG) lenses. This is an alternative with a respectable potential due to lower material cost, lower coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), lower thermal coefficient of the refractive index (dn/dT) and a manufacturing process which shares many similarities to the silicone-on-glass (SOG) and flat-plane-PV fabrication. The cost of the optical component of a CPV module can be brought down with this new approach of fabricating Fresnel lenses. Measured efficiency results show optical efficiencies losses of 8% compared to state-of-the-art SOG lenses. This result is preliminary with improvements in lens design and manufacturing still pending.