Sensitivity Analysis Applied to a Concentrator Photovoltaic System

Sensitivity analysis is the use of computational and statistical methods to investigate and analyze the sensitivity of a model. Within the context of product development and manufacturing it is a tool used to quantify the relative importance of known process variation within the space of design tolerances and observed manufacturing defects. In this work sensitivity analysis is shown to provide numerous benefits to the development of a CPV system, including; ranking the relative importance of manufacturing tolerances, understanding how defects interact to influence device efficiency, predicting distributions of product efficiency and manufacturing yield, comparing product designs, and providing feedback for product tolerance requirements.