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US 2019/0123212 A1Published application
Photovoltaic fabric with woven bus architecture
AssigneeUniversity of Maine System Board of Trustees
InventorKarl A. Pepin
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A fabric comprising a plurality of photovoltaic filaments includes a conductive bus structure woven into the selvage edge of the fabric, providing a robust and flexible electrical connection from the positive and negative electrode leads of the photovoltaic filaments. The bus structure may be formed in segments which can include any combination of series and parallel configurations to accommodate loads requiring specified voltage and current.
Claims20
A woven photovoltaic fabric having opposed first and second edges, comprising:
- a plurality of non-photovoltaic warp filaments;
- a plurality of discrete-length photovoltaic weft elements, wherein each said photovoltaic weft element has a clad portion, a terminated positive electrode at a first end of the clad portion, and a terminated negative electrode at a second end of said clad portion opposite said unterminated positive electrode;
- a first and second plurality of conductive elements woven into the first and second edges of the photovoltaic fabric, making electrical termination with said positive electrodes and negative electrodes in respective first and second bus structures on opposite edges of the photovoltaic fabric.
A method for making a photovoltaic fabric, comprising:
- cutting a plurality of discrete length flexible photovoltaic elements having substantially the same length;
- stripping negative and positive electrodes at opposite ends of the discrete length flexible photovoltaic elements and clipping the positive electrode near the cladding, adjacent the negative electrode to be terminated and the negative electrode near the cladding, adjacent the positive electrode to be terminated;
- tensioning a plurality of non-photovoltaic warp yarns;
- weaving the photovoltaic elements into the warp yarns;
- and
- weaving conductive filaments with the negative electrodes and positive electrodes terminated in opposed selvage edges of the fabric.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.