Solar Energy 80 (2006) 1580–1587

www.elsevier.com/locate/solener

Concept and design of modular Fresnel lenses

for concentration solar PV system
a,* a,b
Kwangsun Ryu , Jin-Geun Rhee , Kang-Min Park c, Jeong Kim d

a
Satellite Technology Research Center, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 305-701 Daejeon, Republic of Korea
b
Taihan Techren, Co. LTD., 305-343 Daejeon, Republic of Korea
c
Agency for Defence Development, PO Box 35, Daejeon, Republic of Korea
d
Sejong University, 143-747 Seoul, Republic of Korea

Received 25 April 2005; received in revised form 30 September 2005; accepted 9 December 2005
Available online 13 February 2006

Communicated by: Associate Editor Hansjörg Gabler

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a new configuration of solar concentration optics utilizing modularly faceted Fresnel lenses to
achieve a uniform intensity on the absorber plane with a moderate concentration ratio. The uniform illumination is
obtained by the superposition of flux distributions resulted from modularly faceted Fresnel lenses. Based on the concept
of modularly faceted Fresnel lenses, the cost effective 3-D concentration solar PV system is designed for future applica-
tions. Mathematical treatments for deriving the flux distribution and the concentration efficiency at the absorber plane
are introduced. As an example, the distribution of the solar flux, at the cell position, is simulated using ray-trace technique
for 9, 25, 49, 81, and 121 suns concentration systems. The irradiance distributions at the cell plane are estimated to be
uniform within 20%, with a transmission efficiency larger than 70% for low and medium concentration ratios (less than
50 suns).
 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Solar photovoltaic system; Fresnel lenses; Solar concentrator

1. Introduction systems are not competitive with other power gener-

ation systems. Since the cost of concentration optics
Photovoltaic power generation systems are bought in volume, are much lower than solar cells,
attracting considerable attention as sources of elec- there have been various efforts to lower the manu-
trical power that can replace or complement the cur- facturing cost using various concentrator optics
rent power generation systems that utilize fossil and (Whitfield et al., 1999).
nuclear fuels. So far, the costs for the solar PV The artificial increase in the solar intensity inci-
dent on solar cells using lenses or mirrors can allow
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 42 869 8639; fax: +82 42 861
solar cells to generate equivalent power with a lower
0064. cost. There are two types of concentration optics for
E-mail address: [email protected] (K. Ryu). solar energy conversion. One is to use mirrors

0038-092X/$ - see front matter  2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.solener.2005.12.006
 K. Ryu et al. / Solar Energy 80 (2006) 1580–1587 1581

(Luque, 1980; Feuermann and Gordon, 2001), and ray tracing simulations. The results show that the
the other is to use Fresnel lenses (Lorenzo and modularly faceted Fresnel lenses can provide a uni-
Luque, 1981). The gains that can be achieved with form distribution of the solar irradiance throughout
a Fresnel lens or a parabolic mirror are compared the absorber plane with moderate concentration
(Lorenzo and Luque, 1982). The result showed the ratios, and therefore, can help to increase the PV
gains are comparable and the two configurations generation efficiency.
were developed competitively.
In application areas of Fresnel lenses as solar 2. Concept and design of modular Fresnel lenses
concentrators, several variations of design were
devised and tested. Some PV systems still use com- Fresnel lenses are used in optical systems that
mercially available flat Fresnel lenses as concentra- require large area, small mass, and low image qual-
tors. A convex linear Fresnel lens to improve the ity. That fact initiated studies of using Fresnel lenses
concentration ratio and the efficiency is devised in the solar photovoltaic power generation. In con-
(Kritchman et al., 1979) and flat linear Fresnel lens ventional Fresnel lenses, the facets are shaped circu-
in thermal energy collection is utilized (Al-Jumaily larly to focus a collimated beam to a point or to an
and Al-Kaysi, 1998). A symmetrical convex shaped area. By the nature of optical property of the con-
Fresnel lens was introduced and optimized (Leutz ventional Fresnel lenses, the illumination depends
et al., 1999). Later, ‘‘shaped non-imaging Fresnel strongly on the position of the absorber plane.
lens’’ was presented (Leutz et al., 2000), which had The irregular illumination on the PV solar cells pre-
arbitrary profiles according to the applications. In vents extracting maximum power. It was pointed
the case of mirror concentrators, there are parabolic out that non-uniform illumination produces signifi-
trough reflection concentrators (Coventry, 2005), cant local heating and ohmic drops in concentration
Fresnel reflection collectors (Larbi et al., 2000), solar cells (Luque et al., 1998). The same restriction
V-trough concentrators (Rabl, 1976), and parabolic applies to the cases that use mirrors as concentra-
mirror dishes (Feuermann and Gordon, 2001). tors of the solar flux.
In the previous concentrators, the non-uniform The decrease of conversion efficiency due to the
distribution of solar flux, at the absorber plane, low- irregular illumination can be compensated for, by
ered the efficiency of the PV power generation. In using a solar cell that is uniquely designed for a
this paper, a new type of Fresnel concentrator is given concentration optical system. This is achieved
introduced and its optical performance is estimated. by connecting solar cell units serially, to match the
The distribution of flux and the concentration effi- voltage level at each sub region, and then by
ciency at the absorber plane are investigated with connecting them in parallel, to collect the electric

(a) (b)

Fig. 1. Concept of modular Fresnel lenses for solar flux concentration. (a) Three dimensional view of the concentration optics, and (b)
facet directions of the modularly faceted Fresnel lenses.
1582 K. Ryu et al. / Solar Energy 80 (2006) 1580–1587

current from the cell assembly. This method has a The modular Fresnel lenses have two dimen-
disadvantage in that the solar cell has to be uniquely sional blocks consisting of a (2n + 1) by (2n + 1)
designed for a given optical system. This can be array expanding symmetrically from the optical cen-
relieved by the newly proposed method of using ter. Dimensional parameters for the design of con-
the modularly faceted Fresnel lenses. centrating modular Fresnel lenses are depicted in
The basic idea of the modular Fresnel lenses for Fig. 2(a). If we denote the block width as w, then
the 3-D concentration solar PV system is depicted the total width will correspond to w(2n + 1). In
in Fig. 1(a). As shown in the picture, the idea is addition, the blocks can be indexed as (i, j), where
based on the concept of superposition. An array i and j represent the ith and jth element extending
of modular Fresnel lenses bends the normally inci- from n to n of the x and y axis. Therefore, dx or
dent solar flux to the solar cell area. Each lens block dy, the distance from the center of the lens to the
has the same, or a slightly larger, dimension as the center of a block in x and y axis, is given as wi or
solar cell area. If the facets for each illumination wj. The angle a, defined as an angle made by x axis
block are formed in the direction, that is normal and the line from the optical center to the center of a
to the vector starting at the center of the lens array block, is given as arctan(j/i). The facets for a block
and ending at the center of the illumination block, should form an angle of a + 90 with respect to the
the idea of superposition can be implemented by x axis to collect all the fluxes incident on the lens as
proper determination of the facet angle for each illu- denoted in Fig. 1(b).
mination block. The facets of a nine by nine array of A cross-sectional view of the modular Fresnel
lens blocks with the above-described concept are lenses is shown in Fig. 2(b). A normally incident
shown in Fig. 1(b) as an example. At the central lens beam is refracted with an angle of h at the facets
block, there are no facets since the light should not underneath the lens plane. The refraction angle
bend at this region. This idea is similar with multi- h(i,j) for a block (i,j) is given as,
foci Fresnel lens or prismatic lens proposed by  
d xy ði; jÞ
Pellegrino et al. (2004) in that the lenses decouple hði; jÞ ¼ arctan
f
global and local slopes of the concentrating optics.  qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
They chooses to use small rectangular lens facets w 2
¼ arctan i þ j2 ; ð1Þ
with smooth surfaces, while our system uses prism f
rings for the facets, which allows to keep the seg- where dxy(i, j) denotes the distance from the center
ments larger. of the lens to the center of a block and f is the focal

(a) y (b)
dx
φ
α dy x

dxy

Fig. 2. (a) Dimensional parameters defined for the design of a concentration optics and (b) a cross-sectional view of the modular Fresnel
lenses.
 K. Ryu et al. / Solar Energy 80 (2006) 1580–1587 1583

length of the concentrator. The facet angle, /(i, j), h ¼ pði; jÞ tan /ði; jÞ. ð3Þ
can be derived using Snell’s law as,
0sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi1 Each Fresnel lens block has a different optical effi-
sin2 hði; jÞ ciency, since the transmittance at the surface is a
/ði; jÞ ¼ arcsin @ A. ð2Þ function of the refraction angle. There is little geo-
ðn2fl  2nfl cos hði; jÞ þ 1Þ
metrical loss of light for the normally incident
Here, nfl is the representative refractive index of the beam, in the case where the facets are formed on
Fresnel lens material. From Eqs. (1) and (2), the the bottom side of the lens as depicted in
facet angles for the blocks can be determined. Fig. 2(b). Therefore, the optical effects of the facets
are the loss of light due to reflections at the surfaces
3. Performance estimation and the condensation of the beam at each facet. The
transmittance at the top surface, Ttop, can be
The effective transmission and the uniformity of approximated for a small angle of incidence as,
the concentration optics were estimated by simulat- 4nfl
T top ¼ . ð4Þ
ing the distributions of solar flux at the absorber ðnfl þ 1Þ
2

plane, based on the ray-trace technique. As a ray

tracing tool, we have adopted a ray tracing code For a given Fresnel facet angle of / and a refraction
written in IDL (Interactive Data Language) to angle of h, the transmittance at the bottom surface,
include non-standard prism shapes. Tbot, is given as,
As for the lens material, we selected acrylic resin vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
u 0 2 !2 1
(polymethyl-methacrylate, PMMA), which has a u
u1 @ tan2 h sin2 h A.
long lifetime under the sun light, a good transpar- T bot ¼ t 1 þ 1 2
2 tan2 ð2/ þ hÞ sin ð2/ þ hÞ
ency in the solar spectrum, and a low cost of mass
production (Rainhart and Schimmel, 1975). The ð5Þ
refractive index of PMMA, as a function of wave-
length, varies from 1.42 to 1.52 throughout the Here, we omitted the index of lens block, (i, j), for
solar spectrum (Mansour, 2005). The nominal simplicity. Throughout this paper, we did not con-
refractive index of PMMA was evaluated as 1.46 sider anti-reflection coatings on the lens surfaces.
and used in the determination of the facet angles. Since the sun has an angular diameter, Usun, of
The contributions by photons of different wave- 30 0 , the blur of flux distribution at the absorber
lengths, to the energy conversion, were taken into plane should be considered. The effect of blur at
account in the simulation by summing the mono- the absorber plane, due to the angular extension
chromatic flux distributions throughout the solar of the sun, was implemented by applying convolu-
spectrum, multiplied by the weighting factor, wk, tion to the flux distribution with a kernel function,
which is the product of the solar irradiance at the which is derived from the solar diameter and focal
earth surface and the spectral response values of length of the concentration PV system. The kernel
poly-crystalline Si solar cells (Sivoththaman et al., function is given as a two dimensional array, which
1993). Wavelength sampling, every 25 nm between has a constant value within a circle, whose diameter
300 nm and 1150 nm, was adopted in the ray corresponds to fUsun.
tracing. For each wavelength, flux (traced ray bundle)
The ray tracing was performed with variations of distributions from the blocks are estimated indepen-
the f-number, the incidence angle, and the optical dently and then, all the distributions are summed to
concentration ratio. The total width of the array, estimate the final performance at the cell position. If
w(2n + 1) was fixed to 1 m. The focal length of the we denote Fk(i,j)(x, y) as the monochromatic flux dis-
concentrator, f, was varied from 0.5 m to 1.6 m. tribution at the absorber plane, formed by the block
The incidence angle ranges from 0 to 6.0. The (i, j), and wk as the weighting factor for each wave-
ray tracing was performed iteratively, for 3 · 3, length, the total flux distribution is given by,
5 · 5, 7 · 7, 9 · 9, and 11 · 11 arrays of the Fresnel X
lenses. The solar cell area has the same dimension as F ðx; yÞ ¼ wk F k ðx; yÞ
k
a lens block, w. The pitch of the facet, p, is assumed X XX
to be w/20. The height of the facet, h, is adjusted ¼ wk F kði;jÞ ðx; yÞ. ð6Þ
according to the region satisfying the relation, k i j
1584 K. Ryu et al. / Solar Energy 80 (2006) 1580–1587

The monochromatic flux distributions and the allows mechanical alignment error up to 2.0,
total flux distribution, formed by an 5 · 5 array of while the allowable tracking error is about 1.0.
modular Fresnel lenses, with f/1.0 and the incidence The effective transmission and the relative devia-
angle of 0 are shown in Fig. 3. There exist sinusoi- tion also change as a function of the incidence angle
dal variations in the monochromatic flux distribu- and the f-number of the optical system (see Fig. 5).
tion, across the facet directions. The modulation The effective transmission is defined as the ratio of
occurs because the facets reduce the widths of the transmitted flux on the solar cell area to the total flux
incident flux bundles. The monochromatic flux dis- incident on the lens array. The loss of light, due to the
tributions, at the absorber plane, show leakages reflections at the lens surfaces, is included by weight-
from the cell area, as shown in Fig. 3(a)–(e). The ing the traced ray bundles by Eqs. (4) and (5). The
amount and distribution of the deviated flux depend uniformity at the absorber plane is also investigated
on the wavelength. The total flux distribution, by comparing the relative deviation, defined as the
F(x, y), is shown in Fig. 3(f). The sinusoidal varia- ratio of the standard deviation of the irradiance to
tions do not appear and most of the transmitted the maximum irradiance, within the solar cell area.
rays are evenly distributed within the solar cell area, Effective transmission larger than 65% can be main-
though there still remains flux leakage along the tained for the 3 · 3, 5 · 5, and 7 · 7 arrays, with the
edges. acceptance angles (90%) larger than 1.0.
The total flux distributions formed by an 5 · 5 Non-ideal shape quality of the lens facets affects
array of modular Fresnel lenses with f/1.0, for the the effective transmission. According to the ray trac-
various incidence angles, are depicted in Fig. 4. As ing results, errors in the facet angles can be allowed
the incidence angle increases, the irradiance distri- to ±2.0, for maintaining 90%, or more, of the max-
bution starts to deviate from the cell area and the imum effective transmission. The relative deviations
shape becomes asymmetric. The change of the pro- for the three cases are less than 30%, showing the
file of the distribution is also shown in Fig. 4(e). lower relative deviation for the smaller concentra-
According to the graph, the concentration optics tion ratio.

Fig. 3. Monochromatic flux distribution formed by an 5 · 5 array of modular Fresnel lenses, with f/1.0 and the incidence angle of 0, for
various wavelengths, (a) 500 nm, (b) 600 nm, (c) 700 nm, (d) 800 nm, and (e) 900 nm and (f) is the weighted sum of the monochromatic flux
distributions throughout all the wavelength samples (see the text). The square boxes represent the boundary of the solar cell area.
 K. Ryu et al. / Solar Energy 80 (2006) 1580–1587 1585

200 200
(a) (b)

100 100

0 0

-100 -100

-200 -200
-200 -100 0 100 200 -200 -100 0 100 200

200 200
(c) (d)

100 100

0 0

-100 -100

-200 -200
-200 -100 0 100 200 -200 -100 0 100 200

1.2
(e)
1.0
Relative illumination

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2
0.0
-300 -200 -100 0 100 200
Position in Absorber Plane (mm)

Fig. 4. Total flux distribution, formed by a 5 · 5 array of modular Fresnel lenses with f/1.0, for various incidence angles, (a) 0, (b) 1.0, (c)
2.0, and (d) 3.0. (e) is the horizontal profile of the flux for incident angles of 0 (solid line), 1.0 (dotted line), 2.0 (dashed line), and 3.0
(dot-dashed line). The thick solid line represents the illumination level when all the flux is evenly distributed within the solar cell area.

The f-number of the concentration system, also, centration optics, it is desirable to design a concen-
affects the effective transmission. The variation of tration system which has the f-number about 1.2.
the effective transmission, as a function of the With f/1.2, the intensity levels of various concentra-
f-number, is shown in Fig. 6. Below f/1.0, the trans- tion ratio are 7 suns for the 3 · 3 array, 19 suns for
mission efficiency starts to decrease rapidly. At the 5 · 5 array, 31 suns for the 7 · 7 array, 47 suns
f/0.6, the lens itself loses almost half the incident for the 9 · 9 array, and 60 suns for the 11 · 11 array,
solar flux. Above f/1.2, the transmission efficiency respectively. The decrease in effective transmission is
does not increase effectively, saturating at the value caused by the dispersion of the lens material. Con-
of 80% for the 3 · 3 array, corresponding to the sidering that the effective transmission and the
intensity level of seven suns. acceptance angle decrease, as the concentration ratio
Since the system size and the manufacturing cost increases, the modular Fresnel lenses are suitable for
increase proportionally to the f-number of the con- the low and moderate concentration PV systems.
1586 K. Ryu et al. / Solar Energy 80 (2006) 1580–1587

50
(a) (b)
Effective Transmission (%)

80

Relative Deviation (%)

40
60
30
40
20
20
10
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Incident Angle (degree) Incident Angle (degree)
50
(c)
Effective Transmission (%)

80 (d)

Relative Deviation (%)

40
60
30
40
20
20
10
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Incident Angle (degree) Incident Angle (degree)
50
(e) (f)
Effective Transmission (%)

80
Relative Deviation (%)

40
60
30
40
20
20
10
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Incident Angle (degree) Incident Angle (degree)
50
(g) (h)
Effective Transmission (%)

80
Relative Deviation (%)

40
60
30
40
20
20
10
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Incident Angle (degree) Incident Angle (degree)
50
(i)
Effective Transmission (%)

80
(j)
Relative Deviation (%)

40
60
30
40
20
20
10
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Incident Angle (degree) Incident Angle (degree)

Fig. 5. The effective transmission and the relative deviation, as a function of the incidence angle, for various f-numbers of the optical
system. (a) and (b) for 3 · 3 array, (c) and (d) for 5 · 5 array, (e) and (f) for 7 · 7 array, (g) and (h) for 9 · 9 array, and (i) and (j) for 11 · 11
array. Dashed lines for f/0.6, solid lines for f/0.8, dot-dashed lines for f/1.0, dashed lines for f/1.2, dotted lines for f/1.4, and thick solid
lines for f/1.6. The vertical bars, in the graphs (a), (c), (e), (g), and (i), represent the acceptance angles, where more than 90% of the
maximum transmission is maintained.
 K. Ryu et al. / Solar Energy 80 (2006) 1580–1587 1587

90 Acknowledgment
80
Effective Transmission (%)

This work is partly supported by the SaTReC

70
and Taihan Techren research program.
60

50 References
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