Emerging Trends in Photovoltaics (PV) Technologies

In terms of global installed capacity, solar PV has overtaken hydro and wind power as the third most important renewable energy source. Photovoltaic Solar Energy: From Fundamentals to Applications brings together the experience of international PV experts to give a thorough and up-to-date description of existing PV technologies, as well as an appraisal of technical advances.

Key features:

• Written by top experts involved in parallel advancements in material sciences, solar cell research, and application-driven research and development.
• Provides a fundamental understanding of light, photons, and solar irradiance, as well as basic PV functioning concepts.
• Covers solar cell characterization techniques, economics, and applications, including silicon, thin-film, and hybrid solar cells.
• Provides a comprehensive overview of PV technologies, including crystalline silicon, chalcogenide thin film solar cells, thin-film silicon-based PV technologies, organic PV and III-Vs, PV concentrator technologies, and economics, life-cycle, and user aspects of PV technologies.

This preface provides an outline of the major ideas covered in this book. The book covers the fundamental functional concepts of photovoltaics (PVs), as well as an introduction to semiconductor materials and a number of subjects related to the physics of solar cells in general. First, it covers the fundamentals of irradiance physics. The irradiance of the sun is determined by the composition of the atmosphere and, as a result, weather, which includes cloud formation and precipitation, particles and water vapor in the atmosphere, and gases contained by the atmosphere.

Dr. Gaurav Srivastava

Dr. Gaurav Srivastava works at Poornima College of Engineering Jaipur. He is currently working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and has been associated with since July 2014. He has vast experience spanning around 11 years both in industry as well as academics. He has done his BTech (2010) in Electrical Engineering, MTech (2014) in Power System from Nirma University, Ahmedabad. His PhD (2020) is in Renewable Energy and Solar Power. He is a lifetime Member – IEANG, ISTE, ISRS and has published over 30 research papers in reputed conferences and journals (Scopus, SCI, UGC Care). He also bags 5 Indian patents and 1 Australian patent on his name. He has authored in various reputed book chapters (Springer, CRC press, IGI Global etc).

Dr. Ashish Kumar Shukla

Dr. Ashish Kumar Shukla has almost 15 years of teaching experience in several engineering college across north India. Currently he is working as associated professor in renowned university, he has done MSc. In 2006 from CSJM Kanpur. During his Ph.D. (2020) his work specifically focused on sensor and PV technologies. He has published more than 10 international research papers and plays an important role in international conferences as well as SCI and Scopus journals. He has edited already several books on science and technology. He is a life time member of AIPT(All India Physics Teachers). His work is progressing on an Indian Patent also.