JPH03266477A - Solar energy collector - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable a solar energy collector to be improved in both electrical energy collection and thermal energy collection efficiency by a method wherein a solar cell provided to the rear of a light transmitting board is made to have such characteristics that it photoelectrically converts the visible ray contained in solar rays primarily and enables infrared ray contained in solar rays to penetrate through. CONSTITUTION:A thin film solar cell 2 whose primary component element is amorphous silicon is provided to all the rear face of a light transmitting substrate 1. A black paint is applied onto the surface of a heat absorbing plate 6 provided behind the rear side of the solar cell 2 and distant from it. Therefore, the visible light region out of solar rays is photoelectrically converted by the solar cell 2, and the infrared ray region out of solar rays is made to penetrate through the solar cell 2, to reach the heat absorbing plate 6 passing through a cooling duct, a light transmitting thermal insulating material 7, and an endothermic duct 9, and to be photoelectrically converted at the plate 6 to heat a heating air which flows through the endothermic duct 9, and the heated air is transferred to a part where thermal energy is utilized. By this setup, a solar energy collector of this design can be improved in both electrical energy and thermal energy collection coefficient.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (a) Field of Industrial Application The present invention relates to a solar energy collection device that simultaneously collects electrical energy and thermal energy from sunlight.

(b) Conventional technology As a method for simultaneously collecting electrical energy and thermal energy from sunlight, for example, USP 4,334゜1
No. 20 exists. However, according to this collection device, the solar cells that convert solar energy into electrical energy have low conversion efficiency at high temperatures, so they must be kept at a low temperature. The problem is that conflicting demands must be met at the same time.

In view of these problems, the applicant of this patent filed the patent application in January 1990.
On March 30th, we proposed a configuration that efficiently collects electrical energy and thermal energy at the same time. The newly proposed configuration is as shown in FIG. 3, as shown in FIG.
1, a heat absorbing plate 22 provided at a distance from the transparent substrate 21, and a transparent plate 23 provided between the heat absorbing plate 22 and the transparent substrate 21. In step 20, sunlight is converted into electrical energy, and sunlight that has arrived at a location where solar cells 20 are not present passes through a transparent substrate 21 and a transparent plate 23, reaches a heat absorbing plate 22, and is converted into thermal energy.

(c) Problems to be Solved by the Invention According to this newly proposed configuration, electrical energy and thermal energy can be obtained at the same time, but it is the solar energy provided on the transparent substrate 21 that contributes to the collection of electrical energy. Only sunlight irradiates the battery, and the solar battery 20 on the transparent substrate 21 contributes to the collection of thermal energy.
Since only sunlight has passed through areas where there is no energy, the efficiency of collecting both types of energy was lower than that of a structure that collects only electrical energy and thermal energy.

The present invention has been made with the aim of improving the efficiency of collecting electricity and thermal energy.

(d) Means for Solving the Problems The present invention performs light-to-electricity conversion mainly in the visible light range of sunlight on a solar cell provided on the back surface of a transparent substrate.
The infrared light region has the characteristic of being transmitted.

(E) Effect According to the present invention, light-to-electricity conversion is performed in the visible light range of sunlight, which does not contain much thermal energy, and in the infrared light range, which does not contribute much to light-to-electricity conversion. Since light-to-thermal conversion is performed, the collection efficiency of both electrical and thermal energy can be improved.

(F) Embodiment FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view of the solar energy collecting device of the present invention, in which 1 is a transparent substrate such as glass, and a thin film solar cell mainly composed of amorphous silicon is formed on the entire back surface of the substrate. 2 is provided. This solar cell 2 is constructed by sequentially laminating a transparent conductive film 3, an amorphous silicon layer 4, and a transparent conductive film 5 from the transparent substrate 1 side.

This amorphous silicon layer 4 is composed of three layers of PIN. A heat absorbing plate 6 is provided on the back side of the solar cell 1 at a distance from the solar cell 2, and its surface is coated with black paint.

Reference numeral 7 denotes a light-transmitting heat insulating material disposed between the heat absorbing plate 6 and the light-transmitting substrate l, and this light-transmitting heat insulating material 7 allows visible light transmitted through the light-transmitting substrate 1 to pass through. , has the function of blocking infrared rays arriving from the heat absorption plate 6 and re-reflecting them to the heat absorption plate 6 side. A cooling duct 8 is formed between the light-transmitting heat insulating material 7 and the light-transmitting substrate 1, and a heat absorption duct 9 is formed between the light-transmitting heat insulating material 7 and the heat absorption plate 6. Cooling air 10 for cooling the solar cells 2 provided on the back side of the translucent substrate 1 is passed through 8, and a heat absorption duct 9 is used to transfer the heat absorbed by the heat absorption plate 6 to heat utilization points. It is configured so that the heated air 11 to be transported flows.

Here, the specific configuration of this solar energy collection device will be explained. The transparent substrate 1 is made of transparent glass with a thickness of 2.0m+n, and the solar cell 2 on the back side of the transparent substrate 1 has a transparent conductive film 3 with a thickness of about 5000 A,
Approximately 50 and 300 people, respectively, formed by plasma reaction.
It is composed of three layers 4 of P-1-N of amorphous silicon with 0 and 200 layers, and a transparent conductive film 5 with a thickness of 2000 layers. The solar cell 2 configured in this way has a wavelength of 0,
It has a peak sensitivity in the visible light range around 6 pm, and exhibits the characteristic of transmitting most of the infrared light range, which contains a lot of thermal energy.

The distance between the cooling duct 8 between the light-transmitting substrate I having the solar cell 2 and the light-transmitting heat insulating material 7 is set to 30 mm, and the space between the light-transmitting heat insulating material 7 and the heat absorption plate 6 is set to 30 mm. has been done. The light-transmitting heat insulating material 7 is made of glass, acrylic, transparent vinyl chloride polycarbonate, a plastic plate such as PET, or a composite material thereof.

When a solar energy collection device with such a configuration is placed on the roof of a house and is irradiated with sunlight, the visible light range that does not contain much thermal energy is converted into light by the solar cell 2. It is converted into electricity and extracted as electrical energy from the solar cell 2. On the other hand, infrared light, which contains a lot of thermal energy that did not contribute to light-to-electricity conversion in the solar cell 2, passes through the solar cell 2 and is cooled. It reaches the heat absorption plate 6 through the duct 8, the light-transmitting heat insulating material 7, and the heat absorption duct 9, where the light is converted into heat, and the heated air 11 flowing in the heat absorption duct 9 near the heat absorption plate 6 is heated to heat the heating device. The heat is transported to heat-using locations such as cooling equipment and absorption cooling equipment.

Cooling air 10 is forced into the cooling duct 8 from a fan (not shown), and the solar cell 2 is cooled from the back side by the cooling air 10.

On the other hand, the surface of the heat absorbing plate 6 is coated with black paint, so when it is irradiated with sunlight, it emits infrared rays toward the heat absorbing duct 9. However, when the infrared rays reach the light-transmitting heat insulating material 7, they are sent to the cooling duct 8. The infrared rays from the heat absorbing plate 6 do not pass through to the side and are reflected again to the heat absorbing duct 9 side, so that the solar cell 2 is not heated by the infrared rays from the heat absorbing plate 6. Therefore, in light-to-heat conversion, the probability that heat will go out in the form of infrared rays outside the heat absorption duct 9 is reduced, and a decrease in light-to-heat conversion efficiency is prevented. Since the heating of the battery 2 is suppressed, the light-to-electricity conversion efficiency does not decrease.In addition, in order to improve the light-to-thermal energy conversion efficiency, the solar cell 2 flows through the cooling duct 8 as shown in FIG. It is also possible to consider a method in which the cooling air lO that has been cooled is not exhausted to the outside, but is guided into the heat absorption duct 9 and used as the heated air 11. By adopting such a configuration, the cooling air IO, which has been slightly preheated by cooling the solar cells 2, is further heated in the heat absorption duct 9. The temperature of heated air 11 obtained from air 9 can be increased.

In addition, as a method of increasing the insulation effect of the heat absorbing plate 6 and the light transmitting heat insulating material 7 and reducing heat loss as much as possible, the heat absorbing plate 6 and the light transmitting heat insulating material 7 are made of a plate material with a vacuum layer. It is also possible to configure it.

(G) Effects of the Invention As is clear from the above description, the present invention performs light-to-electricity conversion mainly in the visible light range of sunlight in a solar cell provided on the back surface of a transparent substrate.

Since the infrared light range has the characteristic of being transmitted, light-to-electricity conversion takes place in the visible light range of sunlight, which does not contain much thermal energy and does not contribute much to light-to-electricity conversion. Light-to-thermal conversion takes place in the infrared region, resulting in improved collection efficiency of both electrical and thermal energy.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Figure 1 is a sectional view of the solar energy collecting device of the present invention, Figure 2
The figure is a cross-sectional view of another embodiment of the present invention in which the collection efficiency is further improved, and FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view of a conventional device. l... Transparent substrate, 2... Solar cell, 6... Heat absorption plate, 7... Light-transparent heat insulating material, 8... Cooling duct, 9
...Heat absorbing duct.

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) A solar cell that generates electricity when irradiated with sunlight is provided on the back side of the transparent substrate, and a heat absorption plate is placed on the back side of the solar cell at a distance from the solar cell. In a solar energy collection device in which a light-transmitting heat insulating plate is interposed between the solar cell and the solar cell, the solar cell performs light-to-electrical conversion mainly in the visible light range of sunlight, and converts light into electricity in the infrared light range. is a solar energy collecting device characterized by having the characteristic of transmitting light. (2) The solar energy collection device according to claim 1, wherein the solar cell is composed of a transparent conductive film, a P-I-N layer made of amorphous silicon, and a transparent conductive film. Device.