NEW SOLUTIONS FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY FROM THE SUN

Violeta Niculescu^*, Mihai Anghel

National  Research and Development Institute of Cryogenics & Isotope Technologies Street Uzinei no.4; O.P Râureni; P.O.Box 7, Rm.Vâlcea, Code 240050, Romania,

phone: 0250 732744, fax: 0250 732746

ABSTRACT

Atmospheric and environmental pollution, as a result of extensive fossil fuel exploitation in almost all human activities, has led to some undesirable phenomena. They include global warming, the greenhouse effect, climate change, ozone layer depletion, and acid rain. Solar energy offers one particularly harmless solution to growing energy demands. To find a more cost effective solution to the energy problem (the costs), we propose the use of a special type of solar cells, the Luminescent Solar Concentrators (LSCs). They typically consist of glass or transparent polymer slabs, doped with organic dyes or quantum dots that act as luminescent centres. The renewed interest in the LSCs has lead to the development of thermodynamic and ray-trace models, which equally well describe the performance of LSCs. Stability tests for over 2 years have shown that good candidates exist for use in commercial type LSCs. Still, annual performance of LSCs has to be investigated, as it is expected that better use is made of the diffuse part of solar irradiation compared to conventional solar cells. Finally, cost-optimization studies should prove the economical viability of LSCs. Our study offers a new solution in order to reduce the environmental damage produce by the classical fuels combustion.

KEYWORDS: LSC, environment, solar cell, solar energy.