Aggregated Total Internal Reflection Optics for Solar

An agglomeration of factors has stifled the economic promise of CPV. Foremost among these factors are: insufficient optical efficiency, misfit with existing solar infrastructure, high costs, and inadequate reliability of the optic‐receiver package. These difficulties are significantly driven by the choice of optic. The CPV industry is constrained in a paradigm of bulky reflective or refractive optics that operate best at either low concentration (2–5x) or high concentration (100x and above). Low concentration approaches are plagued by marginal economics, while high concentration approaches face technical risks and do not fit well with the existing solar infrastructure. Using total internal reflection as the primary optical mechanism, a cost effective, line‐focus optic can be produced at scale to provide superior optical performance in a flat profile and operate at a mid level of concentration to optimize the tradeoff between economic benefit and adoptability.