Academic literature on the topic 'Outdoor photovoltaic installation'

The publication contains polymorphic and micromorphic photovoltaic module outdoor tests performed during autumn, winter, spring and summer day. Simulations of an installation consisting of panels both types have been made. Both performances were compared for the location in the KrakówCzęstochowa Upland, continental climate

Photovoltaic driven thermoelectric cooling devices are investigated for installation in a modular outdoor test-room. Because of Peltier effect in a thermoelectric cooling (TEC), heating and cooling is achieved by applying a voltage difference across the thermoelectric module. Theoretical design modeling of cooling load and noise characterization of building integrated Thermoelectric (TEC) Devices is analyzed. System design of photovoltaic driven TEC devices is investigated with varying fresh outdoor ventilation rates. Building integrated design of TEC devices inside ceiling suspended duct along with TEC devices mounted on wall driven by rooftop and active façade photovoltaic devices is considered in the analysis. In this way, two-stage dehumidification is achieved by two different sets of TEC devices. The investigation is conducted for effect of voltage, air flow rate and height of fin heat transfer surface. Expressions along with results for noise characterization in photovoltaic driven building integrated TEC devices are also provided.

Organic photovoltaic (OPV) solar cells represent an emerging and promising solution for low-cost clean energy production. Being flexible and semi-transparent and having significant advantages over conventional PV technologies, OPV modules represent an innovative solution even in applications that cannot be based on traditional PV systems. However, relatively low efficiencies, poor long-term stability, and thermal issues have so far prevented the commercialization of this technology. This paper describes two outdoor experimental campaigns that compared the operation of OPV modules with traditional PV modules—in particular crystalline silicon and copper–indium–selenium (CIS)—and assessed the OPV modules’ power generation potential in vertical installation and facing towards the cardinal directions.

Sustainability and energy prices make the energy production from renewable sources necessary and photovoltaic energy is ideal on an urban scale and on isolated facilities. However, when the demand for energy is at night, as in lighting installation, the use of accumulative systems is necessary. The use of batteries can account for more than 70% of the budget of these systems and have a critical impact in the project. This problem increases when the installation’s location moves away from the equator, as the variation between the duration of days and nights increases. This implies that the system must be oversized to almost triple its generation and storage capacity to guarantee operation. This paper proposes the use of a robust and affordable electronic centralized management system that can regulate the consumption based on the energy available in the batteries. To test this system, a real case of outdoor lighting nanogrid has been used. The facility has been powered by a grouped photovoltaic battery system dimensioned for the average year solar conditions with and without consumption management. When used without regulation, in winter or cloudy days, there have been repetitive crashes of the system. On the other hand, with the use of the electronic control proposed, the shutdowns have been avoided, regulating the lighting level when necessary. Thus, more efficient and economically affordable systems can be designed which can help to spread the installation of isolated photovoltaic lighting.

In recent years, thin-film and organic photovoltaic (OPV) technologies have been increasingly used as alternatives to conventional technologies due to their low weight, portability, and ease of installation. Outdoor characterization studies allow knowing the real performances of these photovoltaic (PV) technologies in different environmental conditions. Therefore, to address the above, this article presents the hardware–software design and implementation of an integrated and scalable platform for performing the outdoor real-time characterization of modern PV/OPV technologies located at different altitudes. The platform allows knowing the outdoor performance of PV/OPV technologies in real environmental conditions by acquiring data from different monitoring stations located at different altitudes. The proposed platform allows characterizing solar panels and mini-modules and acquiring relevant information to analyze power generation capacity and efficiency. Furthermore, other devices for new PV technologies characterization can be easily added, achieving a scale-up of the platform. A preliminary study of the outdoor performance of emerging PV/OPV technologies was carried out at three different altitudes in a tropical climate region. From the results, the copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) technology presents the best outdoor performance with an average PCE of 9.64%; the OPV technology has the best behavior at high temperatures with a voltage loss rate of 0.0206 V/°C; and the cadmium telluride (CdTe) technology is the most affected by temperature, with a voltage loss rate of 0.0803 V/°C.

Abstract The outdoor measurements (during two months experiment) of photovoltaic silicon and CIGS modules as well as simulation of energy production during the period experiment are presented in this paper. This paper offer comparison of construction and electrical characteristics of multicrystalline silicon based modules and CIGS based modules. The measuring system for PV modules efficiency research is shown. The nominal power of installed modules is 250 W for m-Si and 280 W for CIGS modules. The energy production in outdoor conditions at direct current side and alternating current side of each photovoltaic panel was measured. Each PV panel was also equipped with temperature sensor for screening panel temperature. The photovoltaic panels were connected to the electrical network with micro inverters. To determine the influence of irradiance at sunshine on power conversion efficiency of PV panels, the pyranometer was installed in the plane of the modules. Measurement of the instantaneous power and irradiance gave the information about the efficiency of a particular photovoltaic panels. In the paper all data from research installation were analysed to present the influence of solar cell technology on the power conversion efficiency. The results of energy production show that m-Si module produced more energy from square meter (30.9 kWh/m2) than CIGS module (28.0 kWh/m2). Thin film module shows the higher production per kWp than multicrystalline module: 217.3 kWh/kWp for CIGS and 201.9 kWh/kWp for m-Si. The energy production simulation (made by PV SOL software and outdoor measurements test are in the good agreement. Temperature power coefficient for the CIGS module is twice lower than for the multicrystalline silicon module: 0.56%/°C and 0.35%/°C for m-Si and CIGS modules, respectively. The obtained results revealed strong influence of irradiance and temperature on energy production by PV panels. Performed studies have a large field of potential application and could improve designing process of PV installation.

Sports centres constitute major energy consumers. This article presents the proposed energy performance upgrade process and the achieved results for the municipal sports centre in Arkalochori, Greece. The facility consists of a swimming pool centre, an outdoor 8 × 8 football court, and two tennis and basketball courts. It operates with considerably high energy consumption due to the lack of any measure towards its energy efficiency improvement since its initial construction in 2002. Due to the significantly high heating cost, the swimming pool centre remains operative only during the summer period. The energy performance upgrade of the facility was holistically approached through all possibly applicable passive and active measures: insulation of opaque surfaces and replacement of openings, construction of a new, bioclimatic enclosure for the swimming pool’s centre and conversion of the current outdoor facility to an indoor one, installation of heat pumps for indoor space conditioning and swimming pool heating, installation of a solar–combi system for domestic hot water production, upgrade of all indoor and outdoor lighting equipment and installation of a photovoltaic plant on the new enclosure’s roof for the compensation of the remaining electricity consumption. With the proposed measures, the municipal sports centre is upgraded to a zero energy facility. The payback period of the investment was calculated at 14 years on the basis of the avoided energy procurement cost. The swimming pool’s centre operation is prolonged during the entire annual period. This work has been funded by the Horizon 2020 project with the acronym “NESOI” and was awarded the public award of the “Islands Gamechanger” competition of the NESOI project and the Clean Energy for EU Islands initiative.

Sustainability and energy prices make the use of energy obtained from renewable sources on an urban scale and for isolated local facilities necessary for municipal authorities. Moreover, when the demand of energy is at night, as for street lighting installations, the use of accumulative systems is necessary, which means a major drawback due to a short lifetime expectancy and high cost. The use of batteries can require more than 70% of the budget of these lighting systems and has a critical impact in the project. The problem to solve is finding different renewable energy sources that can produce energy throughout the day, especially during the night, at the same time at which it is consumed. As one of the competences of municipal authorities is water supply networks, this paper analyzes the use of energy recovery turbines within these installations as an alternative to photovoltaic generators. To study the viability and effectiveness of this alternative, the water flows available in the network of a medium-size municipality were monitored and analyzed in depth to assess the amount of recoverable energy. In addition, an energy recovery turbine (ERT) station was set up, installing a bypass around one of the pressure-reducing valves (PRV) of the installation where energy is dissipated without practical use. The results obtained imply that the system proposed has economical and technical viability, is reliable and guarantees full service in all the seasons’ conditions. Moreover, the needs of the energy storage capacity are much lower (~8%) than with solar panels.

Numerical simulation using mathematical models that take into account physical phenomena governing the operation of solar cells is a powerful tool to predict the energy production of photovoltaic modules prior to installation in a given site. These models require some parameters that manufacturers do not generally give. In addition, the availability of a tool for the control and the monitoring of performances of PV modules is of great importance for researchers, manufacturers and distributors of PV solutions. In this paper, a test and characterization protocol of PV modules is presented. It consists of an outdoor computer controlled test bench using a LabVIEW graphical interface. In addition to the measuring of the IV characteristics, it provides all the parameters of PV modules with the possibility to display and print a detailed report for each test. After the presentation of the test bench and the developed graphical interface, the obtained results based on an experimental example are presented.

The development of a family of autonomous robots with tracked propeller activated by electrical engines and equipped with very precise „human hand-likeˮgripping will allow their use in various fields. The precision is also ensured by the introduction into the driving system, more precisely into the basis of the driving system, of a stabilizing system of the operational platform. Providing a photovoltaic-type power supply will increase the autonomy of the robot. Finally, the installation of a GoPro Be a HERO s outdoor edition professional camera enables the viewing of an extended field and the transmission of the information to the user through Wi_FiBacPac + Remote compatible. There are many remote areas or whose medium is improper to a direct human intervention. That is why the development of such a family of autonomous robots is extremely useful.

Pour accélérer la transition énergétique vers le solaire photovoltaïque (PV) il faut améliorer la précision des estimations de puissance des installations solaires, la motivation principale de cette thèse. L'évaluation d'un module se fait dans des Conditions de Test Standard (STC) (irradiation de 1000 W/m², température du module (Tmod) de 25 °C, masse d'air de 1,5) que en général on ne trouve pas à l'extérieur, d'où la nécessité d'étudier le comportement d'un module PV fonctionnant dans des conditions réelles.Ce travail fournit une étude de cas de l'impact des facteurs comme l'irradiation (G), Tmod, la neige, le vent, l'ombrage et la salissure sur la production d'énergie d'un banc d'essai PV extérieur (BE) et d'une installation PV en toiture connectée au réseau (IT), situés sur le campus de l'École Polytechnique près de Paris. Basé sur cette analyse, différents filtres sont proposés pour nettoyer la base de données pour l'évaluation des performances. Le BE est composé de modules de cinq technologies différentes (a-Si/µc-Si, c-Si, CIS, HIT, CdTe). L'IT a une capacité de 16,3 kWp avec 52 panneaux de 6 modèles différents (feuille blanche et noire, PERC plein et demi-cellules, Q.ANTUM demi-cellules, bifacial), basés sur du silicium monocristallin.La caractérisation des performances de ces installations est effectuée sur une période de 4 ans pour le BE et de 3,5 ans pour l’IT. Pour le faire, on utilise des indicateurs de performance comme le rendement de référence, des modules et le ratio de performance (PR), avec leurs corrections de température.Les valeurs mensuelles du PR montrent des variations saisonnières selon le type de module, certaines d'entre elles montrant une forte dégradation au fil du temps. En moyenne, il y a une perte de PR du 5% due à l'effet de la température pour les modules à base de c-Si et d'environ la moitié pour ceux à couche mince dans le BE. Le PR moyen pendant l'hiver, compte tenu de l'effet de la température, est compris entre 89 et 93 % pour les modules c-Si et HIT et entre 77 et 90 % pour ceux à couches minces. En plus, des pertes de PR ont été observées dans l’IT dues à l'ombrage de 10 % pour la feuille noire, de 15 % pour celle blanche, de moins de 5 % pour les demi-cellules et de 7 % pour le bifacial.Un taux de dégradation a été estimé en %/an de -0,12, -0,30, -0,8, -0,46, -1,88 pour a-Si/µc-Si, c-Si, CIS, HIT, CdTe respectivement et de 1 %/an pour l’IT.La dernière analyse consiste à récupérer expérimentalement le coefficient de température de puissance (γ), utilisé pour corriger les estimations de puissance PV. Sa valeur STC (γSTC) est supposé constant et généralement prise de la fiche technique du module. Ce travail étudie sa dépendance à G (γG) et analyse la possibilité de l'utiliser pour améliorer la précision d’un modèle d'estimation de la puissance PV. Ceci est fait pour différentes données de G (pyranomètre, photodiode, extraites des mesures de courant de court-circuit, modélisées à partir de l'irradiance globale-directe-diffuse) et Tmod (mesurée, extraite des mesures de tension en circuit ouvert). Les résultats montrent que γ dépendait du niveau de G, des mesures d'irradiation utilisées pour son calcul et des filtres utilisés. L'utilisation de γG issu de pyranomètre ou d'irradiances modélisées et de Tmod mesuré n'améliore pas l'estimation de la puissance pour les modules du BE. En revanche, l'utilisation de mesures par photodiode réduit l'erreur relative moyenne absolue (rMAE) jusqu'à 2,9%, la rendant plus adéquate pour les technologies c-Si. De plus, le calcul de γG à partir de G et Tmod estimés via les mesures de la courbe I-V du module diminue la rMAE jusqu'à 3,6%. Cette méthode est adéquate pour les technologies c-Si et utile pour compenser la dégradation des modules à couche mince. Cette méthodologie a abouti à une amélioration de 1% de l'estimation de la puissance totale du BE
A crucial factor in accelerating the energy transition towards solar photovoltaic (PV) is the improvement of accuracy in power estimations from solar installations, the main motivation of this PhD thesis. The rating of a module is done under Standard Test Conditions (STC) (irradiance of 1000 W/m², module temperature (Tmod) of 25 °C, Air Mass of 1.5) not usually found outdoors, making it necessary to study the behavior of a PV module operating under real-life conditions.This work starts by providing a case-study of the impact of environmental factors such as irradiance (G), Tmod, snow, wind, shading, and soiling on the power output of a PV outdoor testbench and a grid-connected rooftop PV power plant, both located on the campus of École Polytechnique near Paris. Based on this analysis, different filters are proposed to clean the dataset for performance evaluation. The testbench is comprised of modules of five different technologies (a-Si/µc-Si, c-Si, CIS, HIT, CdTe). The rooftop installation has a capacity of 16.3 kWp with 52 panels of 6 different models (white and black backsheet, PERC full and half-cells, Q.ANTUM half-cells, bifacial), all based on monocrystalline silicon.Then, the performance characterization of said installations is carried out, for a 4-year period for the outdoor testbench and a 3.5-year period for the rooftop installation. This is done by utilizing performance indicators like reference yield, module yield, and performance ratio (PR), along with their temperature-corrected counterparts. Monthly PR values show diverse seasonal variation depending on the module type, some of them showing a strong degradation over time.On average, there is a 5% PR loss due to temperature effect for the c-Si-based modules and about half for the thin-film modules in the testbench. The average PR during winter, considering the temperature effect, is between 89-93 % for c-Si and HIT and between 77-90 % for thin-films. During this time, losses in PR due to shading of 10 % for the black backsheet, 15 % for the white backsheet, less than 5 % for the half-cells, and 7% for the bifacial module were observed in the rooftop installation.The PR loss for the modules in the testbench led to an estimated degradation rate in %/year of -0.12, -0.30, -0.8, -0.46, -1.88 for a-Si/µc-Si, c-Si, CIS, HIT, CdTe respectively and of 1%/year for the rooftop installation.The final analysis is the experimental retrieval of the power temperature coefficient (γ), commonly used to perform temperature corrections on PV power estimations and assumed to be constant, its STC value (γSTC) is usually taken from the module’s datasheet. Thus, this work studies its dependence on G (γG) and analyzes the possibility of using γG in a PV power estimation model to improve its accuracy. This is done for different data sources of G (pyranometer, photodiode, retrieved from short-circuit current measurements, modelled from global-direct-diffuse irradiance) and Tmod (measured, retrieved from open-circuit voltage measurements). The results showed a dependence of γ on the level of G, the irradiance sensor providing the measurements utilized for its computation, and the filters used to clean the data. Using a γG calculated with pyranometer or modelled irradiances and a measured Tmod yielded no improvement on the power estimation for the testbench modules whereas one using photodiode measurements reduced the relative mean absolute error (rMAE) by up to 2.9 %, proving more adequate for c-Si technologies. Furthermore, computing γG using a G and Tmod estimated from the module’s I-V curve measurements resulted in a decrease of rMAE of up to 3.6%, a method proving to be adequate for c-Si technologies and useful in compensating for degradation in thin-film modules. However, the improvements were modest, a 1% betterment of the total power estimation for the testbench

Fort Huachuca, AZ, located 60 mi Southeast of Tucson, has had over 30 years of experience with various renewable energy systems. This session discusses lessons learned from the successes and failures in that experience, including: an indoor pool solar water heating system (installed 1980); a solar domestic hot water (DHW) system (installed 1981); a grid connected Photovoltaic system (installed 1982); transpired air solar collectors (Solarwalls,™ installed 2001); day-lighting (installed 2001); a 10-KW wind turbine (installed 2002); photovoltaic powered outdoor lighting (installed 1994); a prototype Dish/Stirling solar thermal electric generator (installed 1996); two 30-KW Building Integrated Photovoltaic systems (installed on new membrane roofs in 2009); and a 36-KW Photovoltaic system moved from the Pentagon in June 2009 and became operational November 2009 at Fort Huachuca. Also discussed is an experimental solar attic system (first installed in 2003 and now being fully monitored) that collects hot air in an attic, and via a heat exchanger and tank, produces solar DHW. This paper discusses system design, installation, metering, operation and maintenance, and also work in progress on the installation of commercial, off-the-shelf 3-KW Dish/Stirling solar thermal electric generators and solar thermal/natural gas-to-electric systems at a central plant. Discussions include biogas (methane from a wastewater digester) and biomass (wood chip boiler) being installed at a central heating/cooling plant.

Performance uncertainty is a barrier to implementation of innovative technologies. This research investigates the potential of flexible design — one that enables future change — to improve the economic performance of a naturally ventilated building. The flexible design of the naturally ventilated building enables future installation of a mechanical cooling system by including features such as space for pipes and chillers. The benefits of the flexible design are energy savings, delay of capital costs and capability of mitigating the risk of a failed building (by installing the mechanical cooling system). To evaluate the flexible design, building energy simulation is conducted over a multi-year time period with stochastic outdoor temperature variables. One result is a probability distribution of the time when the maximum allowable indoor temperature under natural ventilation is exceeded, which may be “never.” Probability distributions are also obtained for energy savings and cost savings as compared to a mechanically cooled building. Together, these results allow decision-makers to evaluate the long-term performance risks and opportunities afforded by a flexible implementation strategy for natural ventilation. It is shown that the likelihood of future installation of mechanical cooling is most sensitive to design parameters. The impact of increased climate variability depends on the local climate. The probability of installing the mechanical system also depends on the comfort criteria. The results show that capital costs for cooling equipment are much greater than the present value of 10 years of cooling energy costs. This result motivates consideration of flexible design as opposed to hybrid cooling designs (which have immediate installation of mechanical cooling). Future work will study the impact of uncertain energy prices on investment attractiveness of naturally ventilated buildings. Other applications of the framework presented herein include replacing the building energy model with a model of another climate-dependent system, such as solar photovoltaic arrays.