HIGH EFFICIENCY SOLAR TO GAS CONVERSION SYSTEM USING CONCENTRATOR PHOTOVOLTAIC AND ELECTROCHEMICAL CELL

Abstract

In the future, power to gas process chain could play a vital role in the energy system because of long-term storage of solar energy and an effective transformation to usable gases. The resulted energy from the photovoltaic system can be transformed into useful gases such as hydrogen and methane which can be used in gas grids, auto-motives and industries. To use hydrogen as a useful, artificial, sunlight-derived gas, it is needed to achieve high efficiency and low cost production of hydrogen from sunlight irradiation by water splitting. A new effective solar to gas conversion system with multiple DC/DC converter and electrolyzer sets connected with concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) modules have been accomplished in the University of Miyazaki, Japan. The daily high efficiency of solar to hydrogen (~17% on sunny day and ~15% on cloudy day) was obtained from the system by using high efficiency CPV modules connected with multiple converter and electrochemical cells.