Comparison of Xenon lamp-based and LED-based solar simulators

Abstract

Rapid advances in high intensity light emitting diodes (LEDs) have provided sufficient tools to design LED solar simulators to accurately mimic the sun. LEDs offer numerous advantages over lamp-based technology currently used. However, these advantages have not been harnessed because of limitations in creating a solar simulator with the highest rating (AAA) for spectral match, temporal stability, and light uniformity. Oriel's VeraSol is one of the first LED, triple A solar simulators. The VeraSol-LED is compared to the equally rated Oriel Sol3A-xenon lamp solar simulator by studying the current-voltage (I-V) and spectral response of a variety of solar cells. Both simulators effectively mimic the sun; however, the results demonstrated the LED- based simulator produced a more stable, flexible, and accurate match to AM1.5G than the xenon lamp Sol3A with similar marks in the quality of PV cell response.