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32nd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 1385-1389, The aim of this work is to report the results of the main characterization activities carried out on the ECOSOLE HCPV prototypal plant realized by BECAR s.r.l. and installed at ENEA Research Center located at Portici in the south of Italy. After a detailed description of the system main components, the experimental results regarding the module characterizations, the tracker accuracy, the system optical acceptance, and the module temperature survey are detailed. The second part of the paper is focused on the explanation of the performance analysis carried out on the basis of the data collected during the first three months of operation. Particular attention has been paid to the performance comparison of the two sub-arrays of the plant: the first one is realized with module using each one its-own inverter, and the second one is realized with a classic centralized inverter solution. At the end, a procedure for a detailed losses analysis is reported and the results obtained for a whole sunny day are explained.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 1487-1491, ECOSOLE is an European collaborative Project [1] started in August 2012 that involves several industrial and institutional partners with the aim to develop a complete and innovative concentrating photovoltaic system. During the first two years of activity, many specific components as cells, optics, modules and tracker have been designed and developed. This work reports the description of these devices and the main results of the characterization campaigns carried out both indoor and outdoor conditions, in order to define their technical features as well as their performances. Particular attention has been paid to the investigation on the components reliability which is a crucial point for the CPV technology diffusion.

Starting on June 2011, NGCPV has been the first coordinated project between the European Commission and Japanese NEDO in order to advance in the science and technology of concentrator photovoltaics (CPV). Research has covered all relevant areas in CPV, from solar cells to complete systems, including multijunction solar cells, novel solar cell concepts utilizing nanostructures, advanced optics and modules, thermal management, reliability and modeling at all the stages of the CPV chain, rating and round robin schemes and the development of characterization tools for cells, modules and systems (outdoor and indoor). Ending in November 2014, the NGCPV project has attained some remarkable results, such as the manufacturing of a 44.4% world record efficiency triple junction solar cell (by Sharp Corp.) and the development of a 15 kW CPV system (by Daido, BSQ and UPM) with a DC efficiency of 28% under CSOC, which is the highest reported in the world at system level. In this paper we summarize these and other relevant results concerning project activities such as the investigation of novel buffers for growing III-V materials on silicon, novel ~1eV materials for manufacturing quad-junction solar cells, the development of accurate models to forecast the electricity production in CPV plants and novel advanced optical designs for CPV modules, among others.

The fast development of the CPV technology requires the use of photovoltaic cells more and more small and with very high conversion efficiency: optics and modules are designed to reach nominal concentration ratio up to 1000X [1]. In this technological framework, it is very important to test the cell performances using a laboratory equipment, as a solar simulator, able to generate on the cell an irradiance corresponding to the real working conditions. In the market, it is possible to buy several systems designed and produced by specialized Companies or Research Institutes able to make a reliable cell characterization. Unfortunately, these systems are very expensive, because they are built with components specially developed for this purpose. In this paper the authors present a solar simulator for concentrating photovoltaic cells realized with cheap standard components normally used for other scopes. The results is a prototypal system having a cost significantly lower than the commercial solar simulators. Main disadvantage of this approach is that a good power density uniformity on the measurement point is reached only for small size cells (diameter less than 4mm). © 2018 Author(s).

This paper reports the results of a performance analysis carried out by ENEA on a CPV system, produced by BECAR srl within a European collaborative Project named ECOSOLE, and installed at ENEA Research Center of Portici. Modules degradation after two operation years has been evaluated by means of detailed characterizations; tracker system accuracy has been monitored using a specific opto-electronic device. System performances during the period has been analysed based on the production and weather data: a deep performance analysis has been carried out in order to quantify the main losses causes in DC side. The behaviours of the two sub-fields of the system, the first one realized with one centralized inverter for 16 modules and the second one with 16 modules having each one its own inverter, have been compared from technical and economical point of view.This paper reports the results of a performance analysis carried out by ENEA on a CPV system, produced by BECAR srl within a European collaborative Project named ECOSOLE, and installed at ENEA Research Center of Portici. Modules degradation after two operation years has been evaluated by means of detailed characterizations; tracker system accuracy has been monitored using a specific opto-electronic device. System performances during the period has been analysed based on the production and weather data: a deep performance analysis has been carried out in order to quantify the main losses causes in DC side. The behaviours of the two sub-fields of the system, the first one realized with one centralized inverter for 16 modules and the second one with 16 modules having each one its own inverter, have been compared from technical and economical point of view.

The results of three CPV module round robins are presented. Ten test labs around the world participated to the round robins in total. Each round robin used a different CPV module technology (Daido Steel, Soitec, Suncore). The data gathered at the test labs was used to test CSOC power rating procedures as basis for the IEC draft standard 62670-3. The deviation between the minimum and the maximum power output rated at the test labs was in average 4.4 % with a standard deviation of 1.8 %abs. This underlines that power ratings or CPV modules are reliable and reproducible. © 2016, American Institute of Physics Inc. All rights reserved.

This paper reports the results of an experimental campaign carried out by ENEA on an innovative CPV system, produced by BECAR srl within an European collaborative Project named ECOSOLE, and installed at ENEA Research Center of Portici. The system is deeply described together with the monitoring system used to record weather and energetic parameters useful to perform a complete performance analysis of the Plant. The results of the module characterization and of the calculation of the main performance indices are detailed. © 2016, American Institute of Physics Inc. All rights reserved.

Nowadays, the estimation of the PhotoVoltaic (PV) power production systems is crucial for ensuring their economic feasibility as well as their proper sizing in order to avoid outages and guarantee quality and continuity of supply. The working temperature of a PV module or system is a key parameter for the assessment of the actual performance of photovoltaic modules. PV modules are usually rated at Standard Test Conditions (STC = 1000W/m2, AM1.5, 25°C), but their operating temperatures are typically considerably higher. Power production can be highly influenced by cell working (module) temperature whose increase respect to standard one could gradually deteriorate system's energy performance. Correlations to evaluate performances referring to STC and/or applying some theoretical simplifications/assumptions are available in literature. However, it be noticed that the use of these correlations, under the same operative conditions, does not produce univocal results. In this paper, an Artificial Neural Network (ANN)-based model to forecast the working temperature of a Concentrator PhotoVoltaic (CPV) module (back - plate temperature) is proposed. A dataset consisting of meteorological data (i.e. solar direct normal irradiance, ambient temperature, wind speed and wind direction), measured every 1-minute and recorded from November 2012 to April 2014, concerning a 50 kWp CPV plant installed in the southwestern Europe, is used for the training and testing of the ANN developed. The main advantage of the proposed approach is that it acts as black box tool, making easy to model an arbitrary complex non-linear relationship between inputs and outputs. In fact, in this case no in-depth knowledge of the system and its components is required contrary to what needed by deterministic techniques. In order to verify the effectiveness and the accuracy of the approach here proposed, measured and estimated data were analysed and compared considering different error metrics. © 2016, American Institute of Physics Inc. All rights reserved.

ECOSOLE is an European collaborative Project started in August 2012 that involves several industrial and institutional partners with the aim to develop a complete and innovative concentrating photovoltaic system. During the first two years of activity, several specific components as cells, optics, modules and tracker have been designed and developed. This work reports the description of these devices and the main results of the characterization campaigns carried out to define their technical features. © 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.

BECAR, the Beghelli group's RampD company, is leading ECOSOLE (Elevated COncentration SOlar Energy), one of the largest European Demonstration projects in solar photovoltaic. ECOSOLE, started in 2012, is focused on the study, design, and realization of new HCPV generator made of high efficiency PV modules equipped with SoG (Silicone on Glass) fresnel lenses and III-V solar cells, and a low cost matched solar tracker with distributed inverters approach. The project also regards the study and demonstration of new high throughput methods for the industrial large scale productions, at very low manufacturing costs. This work reports the description of the characterization of the tracker and single module. © 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.