Patent ID: 8766086

Claim:
A method for forming a photovoltaic module comprising: providing a sheet of transparent material having a plurality of light concentrating geometric features; mounting the sheet of transparent material on a profiling device; subjecting the sheet of transparent material to incident light; capturing a light profile of the transparent material using a sensing device to determine the light profile for the sheet of transparent material; storing information associated with the light profile for the sheet of transparent material in a memory of a computing device; using the light profile from the memory in determining the exitant light characteristics of the plurality of light concentrating geometric features and locating a plurality of correlated positions on the transparent material for placement of a plurality of photovoltaic strips; disposing a first layer of adhesive material adjacent to the sheet of transparent material; disposing the plurality of photovoltaic strips adjacent to the first layer of adhesive material, wherein the plurality of photovoltaic strips are positioned relative to the sheet of transparent material in response to the light profile comprising exitant light characteristics of the plurality of light concentrating geometric features, wherein each of the plurality of photovoltaic strips are coupled via an associated plurality of bus bars, wherein a plurality of gap regions are located between bus bars between neighboring photovoltaic strips from the plurality of photovoltaic strips; disposing a rigid layer of material adjacent to the plurality of photo voltaic strips to form a composite photovoltaic structure; and laminating the composite photovoltaic structure to fill the plurality of gap regions with adhesive material and to form the laminated photovoltaic structure, wherein adhesive material adheres to the bus bars.