Development of High-Efficiency Solar Cell Modules for Photovoltaic-Powered Vehicles

Photovoltaic (PV)-powered vehicles are expected to play a critical role in a future carbon neutral society because it has been reported that the onboard PVs have great ability to reduce CO2 emission from the transport sector. Although the demonstration car with a III-V-based solar cell module has shown the PV-powered driving range of 36.6 km day(-1) at solar irradiance of 6.2 kWh m(-2) day(-1), practical driving ranges of PV-powered vehicles are shown to be lower than estimated values due to some losses such as nonradiative recombination and resistance losses of solar cell modules under sunshine condition. This article presents analytical results for the effects of illumination intensity properties of various solar cell modules on the PV-powered driving range to develop highly efficient solar cell modules for vehicle-integrated applications. The analysis shows that improvements in shunt resistance and saturation current density of solar cell modules are necessary to improve illumination intensity properties of solar cell modules under low intensity sunshine condition. The calculations show that the III-V-based 3-junction solar cell modules with an efficiency of more than 30% have a potential PV-powered driving range of 30 km/day average and more than 50 km day(-1) on a clear day.

Automated summary

Photovoltaic (PV)-powered vehicles are expected to play a critical role in a future carbon neutral society due to their ability to reduce CO2 emissions from the transport sector. Analytical results show that improvements in shunt resistance and saturation current density of solar cell modules are necessary to develop highly efficient solar cell modules for vehicle-integrated applications. The calculations suggest that III-V-based 3-junction solar cell modules with an efficiency of more than 30% have the potential to achieve a PV-powered driving range of 30 km/day average and more than 50 km/day on a clear day.