Kanpur: The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and NexPV Energy Systems will sign a memorandum of understanding on Wednesday to design and develop India’s first Sun Simulator for Concentrated Photovoltaic (CPV) systems.NexPV director Chidananda Murthy R said CPV is a next-generation solar technology. He said the company has developed an indigenous CPV solution, with proof-of-concept systems operating in the field for about three years, and is now preparing for large-scale manufacturing.Murthy said conventional solar panels need large areas to generate power, while CPV can collect the same sunlight using far less photovoltaic cell area. “The photovoltaic cell area required is approximately 0.1% of the corresponding solar collection area,” he said, adding that a 1,000-square-metre collection area would require only about 1 square metre of photovoltaic cells.Invariance Automation, a member company of Technopark@IITK, is expected to be the preferred manufacturing partner once the systems are designed and developed.Prof Ashish Garg from IIT K’s department of Sustainable Energy Engineering said CPV modules behave fundamentally differently from conventional flat panels, and that creating a simulator tailored to CPV highlights the institute’s focus on translational research.CPV systems use optical lenses to concentrate sunlight onto small, ultra-efficient multi-junction cells made of multiple semiconductor layers, each designed to absorb a different part of the solar spectrum.
