Advanced solar cells with thermal, radiation, and light management for space-based solar power

Camarillo Abad, E, Sun, K, Barthel, A, Trojak, O, Kalfagiannis, N ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4030-5525, Koutsogeorgis, DC ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6167-1084, Vaidya, N, Muskens, OL and Hirst, LC, 2025. Advanced solar cells with thermal, radiation, and light management for space-based solar power. Solar RRL, 9 (10): 2500016. ISSN 2367-198X

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Abstract

Space-based solar power (SBSP) can provide clean and continuous baseload energy by beaming solar power to our planet from photovoltaic arrays in space. While it is widely acknowledged that gigawatt-level, kilometer-scale solar stations in space are required to make SBSP a cost-competitive energy source, these systems can only be viable by implementing lightweight, radiation tolerant, deployable, and low-cost photovoltaic technologies. Here, advanced solar cells with thermal, radiation, and light management (ASTRAL) is presented, a photovoltaic device conceived for SBSP that consists of an ultra-thin tandem solar cell with flexible form factors, ultra-low weight, intrinsic radiation tolerance, and integrated light and thermal management. Through rigorous thermal, radiation, and optical device modeling, it is demonstarted that ASTRAL achieves decades-long lifetimes on SBSP-relevant orbits with > 30 x reduction in radiation shielding mass and corresponding launch costs, all while enabling power generation in excess of 1 kW/m2 at operating temperatures <100°C. Together, these properties make ASTRAL a state-of-the-art photovoltaic technology and a compelling candidate for the practical delivery of SBSP.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Solar RRL
Creators:	Camarillo Abad, E., Sun, K., Barthel, A., Trojak, O., Kalfagiannis, N., Koutsogeorgis, D.C., Vaidya, N., Muskens, O.L. and Hirst, L.C.
Publisher:	Wiley
Date:	22 May 2025
Volume:	9
Number:	10
ISSN:	2367-198X
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1002/solr.202500016 DOI 2447237 Other
Rights:	© 2025 The Author(s). Solar RRL published by Wiley-VCH GmbH. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Science and Technology
Record created by:	Laura Borcherds
Date Added:	03 Jun 2025 16:37
Last Modified:	03 Jun 2025 16:37
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/53685

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