Long lifetime, low power consumption, and environmental friendliness have enabled light-emitting diode (LED) lighting to rapidly replace conventional light sources such as incandescent and fluorescent lamps. In particular, AC-LED lighting systems can be directly powered by commercial alternating current (AC) sources; however, they suffer from significant luminance deviation caused by uneven current distribution among LED light-emitting modules. This paper proposes a lighting control method that improves flicker performance while maintaining lamp brightness and effectively reduces luminance deviation in AC-LED lighting. The proposed method reduces luminance deviation by controlling the lighting order of multiple LED light-emitting modules. Among four LED modules, only the required number of modules is continuously turned on, and the lighting priority alternates between rectification cycles. Specifically, during odd rectification cycles, LED modules are activated sequentially in ascending order (11→12→13→14), whereas during even rectification cycles, they are activated in descending order (14→13→12→11). By alternately applying continuous lighting control with opposite activation orders, the proposed reverse alternating lighting control method equalizes the current distribution among LED modules. As a result, luminance uniformity is improved, electrical stress concentration on specific modules is reduced, and the operational lifetime of the LED modules is extended compared with the conventional fixed-sequence lighting control method.

In order to spread LED lighting, LED lighting technology directly driven by alternating current (AC) commercial power has recently been introduced. Since current does not flow at a voltage lower than the threshold voltage of the LED, a nonconductive section occurs in the current waveform, and the higher the threshold voltage of the LED, the more discontinuous current waveforms are generated. In this paper, multi-LED modules are connected in series so that the threshold voltage can be adjusted according to the number of LED modules. A small number of LED modules are driven at a low instantaneous rectified voltage, and a large number of LED modules are driven at a high instantaneous rectified voltage to lengthen the overall lighting time of AC-LED lighting, thereby minimizing the luminance deviation of AC-LED lighting. In addition, the load current flowing through the LED module is adjusted to be the same as the design current even at the maximum rectified voltage higher than the design voltage, so that the light brightness of the LED module is kept constant. Therefore, even if the rectified voltage applied to the LED module changes, the AC-LED lighting in which the light brightness is constant and the luminance deviation is minimal has been realized.

Interest and investment in renewable energy have increased worldwide, highlighting the need for renewable energy. Solar energy was the most promising energy of all renewable energy sources, and it has the highest investment value. Because photovoltaics require a certain amount of area for installation, high density and high output performance are required. Shingled module is a promising technology in that they are featured by higher density and higher output compared to the conventional modules. Shingled technology uses a laser scribing to divide solar cells that are to be bonded with electrically conductive adhesive (ECA) to produce and connect strings, which has a higher output in the same area than the conventional modules. In the process of producing solar modules, metal ribbons are used to interconnect cells, but they are also needed for string connections in shingled solar cells. Accordingly, in this study, we researched the interconnection that best suits the connector that joins the string to the string. The module outputs produced under the conditions of the string interconnection were compared and analyzed.

The shingled photovoltaic module can be produced by joining divided solar cells into a string of busbarless structure and arranging them in series and parallel to produce a module, in order to produce a high output per unit area. This paper reports a study to optimize solar cell electrode structure for shingled photovoltaic module fabrication. The characteristics of each electrode structure were analyzed according to the simulation program as follow: 80.62% fill factor in the six-junction solar cell electrode structure and 19.23% efficiency in the five-junction electrode structure. Therefore, the split electrode structure optimized for high-density and high-output shingled module fabrication is the five-junction solar cell electrode structure.

Thermal characteristics of 20 W LED module on light thermal conductive plastic (TCP) heat sink were investigated in comparison with that on aluminum die casting alloy (ADC-12). Thermal simulations of the heat sinks were conducted by using flow simulation of SolidWorks with the following input parameters: density is 1.70 and 2.82 kg/㎡, thermal conductivity is 20 and 92 W/(m·K) for TCP and ADC-12, respectively. The simulated and measured temperatures of the LED modules on TCP heat sink were consistent with its measured temperature, which was 3℃ higher that on ADC-12. The fabricated LED module on TCP heat sink with a weight of 120.5 g was 30% lighter in weight than that of the ADC-12 reference with 171.0 g.