Hybrid lighting-CPV, a new efficient concept mixing illumination with CPV.

Hybrid Lighting-CPV concept mixes illumination using low-cost fiber optics for light transmission with conventional Concentrating Photovoltaic (CPV) technology. This approach may offer an important increase in the value of a CPV system. Direct illumination from sunlight with fibers does not require the double light-electricity-light energy conversion allowing for efficient lighting using just a small area of the CPV system, preferably those areas with lower CPV efficiency conversion. Simultaneously the need of concentration and tracking required is completely covered by the infrastructure of the CPV system. In this work, we present a theoretical study of the losses in optical fibers in order to establish the design criteria for the hybrid system. Losses caused by chromatic aberration increase with f-number while transmission losses in the fiber decrease.