  The increase in the temperature of photovoltaic (PV) solar cells affects
negatively their power conversion efficiency and decreases their lifetime. The
negative effects are particularly pronounced in concentrator solar cells.
Therefore, it is crucial to limit the PV cell temperature by effectively
removing the excess heat. Conventional thermal phase change materials (PCMs)
and thermal interface materials (TIMs) do not possess the thermal conductivity
values sufficient for thermal management of the next generation of PV cells. In
this paper, we report the results of investigation of the increased efficiency
of PV cells with the use of graphene-enhanced TIMs. Graphene reveals the
highest values of the intrinsic thermal conductivity. It was also shown that
the thermal conductivity of composites can be increased via utilization of
graphene fillers. We prepared TIMs with up to 6% of graphene designed
specifically for PV cell application. The solar cells were tested using the
solar simulation module. It was found that the drop in the output voltage of
the solar panel under two-sun concentrated illumination can be reduced from 19%
to 6% when graphene-enhanced TIMs are used. The proposed method can recover up
to 75% of the power loss in solar cells.
