Color filter effects on the performance of monocrystalline and polycrystalline photovoltaic solar panels

Abstract

We evaluated effect of different color filters on the electric production performance of monocrystalline and polycrystalline solar photovoltaic panels in real outdoor environment. In the experiment, we used four different color filters from blue to red on photovoltaic panels to observe energy and efficiency performance of the mono and polycrystalline solar photovoltaic panels as well as temperature of the panels measured with and without filters. We observed the wavelength dependence of monocrystalline photovoltaic panel is more effective than the polycrystalline photovoltaic panel one. For both panels we see that yellow color filtered produced the highest power value and have the lowest temperature value. This can be explained with that the spectrum of yellow color filter covers most of the radiation of solar but blocking infrared and ultraviolet side of the sun spectrum. This also causes the lower panel temperature. On the other hand, we observed that photovoltaic panels with blue color filter have the highest temperature value and the lowest power value. By the study we suggest that by optimizing the semiconductor band gaps in photovoltaic panels respect to solar wavelength, one can produce photovoltaic panels with higher efficiency by using filters, especially in hot climate regions. We expected that the results will also contribute to a better analysis of the points that need to be developed during the photovoltaic panel production stages.