Design and assessment of a large commercial Photovoltaic System in Barbados

One of the main aims of this thesis is to design an optimized commercial Photovoltaic (PV) system in Barbados from several variables such as racking type, module type and inverter type based on practicality, technical performance as well as financial returns to the client. Detailed simulations are done in PVSYST and financial models are used to compare different systems and their viability. Once the preeminent system is determined from a financial and performance perspective a detailed design is done using PVSYST and AutoCAD to design the most optimal PV system for the customer. In doing so, suitable engineering drawings are generated which are detailed enough for construction of the system. Detailed cost with quotes from relevant manufacturers, suppliers and estimators become instrumental in determining Balance of System Costs in addition to total project cost. The final simulated system is suggested with a PV capacity of 425kW and an inverter output of 300kW resulting in an array oversizing of 1.42. The PV system has a weighted Performance Ratio of 77 %, a specific yield of 1467 kWh/kWp and a projected annual production of 624 MWh/yr. This system is estimated to offset approximately 28 % of Carlton’s electrical load annually. Over the course of 20 years the PV system is projected to produce electricity at a cost of $0.201USD/kWh which is significantly lower than the $0.35 USD/kWh paid to the utility at the time of writing this thesis. Due to the high cost of electricity on the island, an attractive Feed-In-Tariff is not necessary to warrant the installation of a commercial System which over a lifetime which produces electricity at less than 60% of the cost to the user purchasing electricity from the utility. A simple payback period of 5.4 years, a return on investment of 17 % without incentives, in addition to an estimated diversion of 6840 barrels of oil or 2168 tonnes of CO2 further provides compelling justification for the installation of a commercial Photovoltaic System not only on Carlton A-1 Supermarket, but also island wide as well as regionally where most electricity supplies are from imported fossil fuels.

Techno-economic Appraisal of Concentrating Solar Power Systems (CSP)

The diffusion of Concentrating Solar Power Systems (CSP) systems is currently taking place at a much slower pace than photovoltaic (PV) power systems. This is mainly because of the higher present cost of the solar thermal power plants, but also for the time that is needed in order to build them. Though economic attractiveness of different Concentrating technologies varies, still PV power dominates the market. The price of CSP is expected to drop significantly in the near future and wide spread installation of them will follow. The main aim of this project is the creation of different relevant case studies on solar thermal power generation and a comparison betwwen them. The purpose of this detailed comparison is the techno-economic appraisal of a number of CSP systems and the understanding of their behaviour under various boundary conditions. The CSP technologies which will be examined are the Parabolic Trough, the Molten Salt Power Tower, the Linear Fresnel Mirrors and the Dish Stirling. These systems will be appropriatly sized and simulated. All of the simulations aim in the optimization of the particular system. This includes two main issues. The first is the achievement of the lowest possible levelized cost of electricity and the second is the maximization of the annual energy output (kWh). The project also aims in the specification of these factors which affect more the results and more specifically, in what they contribute to the cost reduction or the power generation. Also, photovoltaic systems will be simulated under same boundary conditions to facolitate a comparison between the PV and the CSP systems. Last but not leats, there will be a determination of the system which performs better in each case study.

Energy Analysis within Industrial Hydraulics and Correspondent Solar PV System Design

Energy efficiency and renewable energy use are two main priorities leading to industrial sustainability nowadays according to European Steel Technology Platform (ESTP). Modernization efforts can be done by industries to improve energy consumptions of the production lines. These days, steel making industrial applications are energy and emission intensive. It was estimated that over the past years, energy consumption and corresponding CO2 generation has increased steadily reaching approximately 338.15 parts per million in august 2010 [1]. These kinds of facts and statistics have introduced a lot of room for improvement in energy efficiency for industrial applications through modernization and use of renewable energy sources such as solar Photovoltaic Systems (PV).The purpose of this thesis work is to make a preliminary design and simulation of the solar photovoltaic system which would attempt to cover the energy demand of the initial part of the pickling line hydraulic system at the SSAB steel plant. For this purpose, the energy consumptions of this hydraulic system would be studied and evaluated and a general analysis of the hydraulic and control components performance would be done which would yield a proper set of guidelines contributing towards future energy savings. The results of the energy efficiency analysis showed that the initial part of the pickling line hydraulic system worked with a low efficiency of 3.3%. Results of general analysis showed that hydraulic accumulators of 650 liter size should be used by the initial part pickling line system in combination with a one pump delivery of 100 l/min. Based on this, one PV system can deliver energy to an AC motor-pump set covering 17.6% of total energy and another PV system can supply a DC hydraulic pump substituting 26.7% of the demand. The first system used 290 m2 area of the roof and was sized as 40 kWp, the second used 109 m2 and was sized as 15.2 kWp. It was concluded that the reason for the low efficiency was the oversized design of the system. Incremental modernization efforts could help to improve the hydraulic system energy efficiency and make the design of the solar photovoltaic system realistically possible. Two types of PV systems where analyzed in the thesis work. A method was found calculating the load simulation sequence based on the energy efficiency studies to help in the PV system simulations. Hydraulic accumulators integrated into the pickling line worked as energy storage when being charged by the PV system as well.

Rapport från 20th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition : Barcelona 6-10 juni 2005

På uppdrag av STEM bevakade Eva Lindberg från Centrum för solenergi-forskning, SERC, Högskolan Dalarna, 20th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, Barcelona, 6-10 juni 2005. Ca 1700 personer fanns på deltagarlistan. På grund av konferensen omfattning kan endast ett litet urval av föredrag och utställare kommenteras i rapporten. Konferensprogrammet var indelat på följande områden:1. Grundläggande fakta, nya komponenter och material2. Kristallina kiselsolceller and materialteknologi3. Amorft och mikrokristallint kisel4. CIS, CdTe och andra (II-VI) ternära tunnfilmsceller5. PV-moduler och komponenter i PV-system6. PV-system i nätanslutna applikationer7. Globala aspekter på PV-solelektricitet8. PV-industrins resultatFoU om kristallina solceller dominerade stort, sedan tunnfilmsceller av främst amorft kisel. Intressant var att återvinning är föremål för FoU; dels återvinning av kiselsolceller när panelen tjänat ut; dels återvinning av Cu, Cd, Se och Te när tunnfilmscellerna tas ur bruk.237 företag fanns representerade i utställningen, varav 20 från Kina. Tyskland dominerade stort. Utställningen teman var följande: 1) Tillverkare av kiselplattor, solceller, PV-moduler, koncentratorer, solföljare (se bild nedan) 2) Tillverkare och återförsäljare av utrustning och material 3) Integrering och distribution av system 4) Mätningar och kontrollteknologi 5) Forskning och laboratorier 6) Service, teknik, konsulting 7) Myndigheter och föreningar 8) Media och förlag 9) Tillverkare av inverterare 10) Övrigt.

Simulation of Photovoltaic Panel Production as Complement to Ground Source Heat Pump System

This master thesis presents a new technological combination of two environmentally friendly sources of energy in order to provide DHW, and space heating. Solar energy is used for space heating, and DHW production using PV modules which supply direct current directly to electrical heating elements inside a water storage tank. On the other hand a GSHP system as another source of renewable energy provides heat in the water storage tank of the system in order to provide DHW and space heating. These two sources of renewable energy have been combined in this case-study in order to obtain a more efficient system, which will reduce the amount of electricity consumed by the GSHP system.The key aim of this study is to make simulations, and calculations of the amount ofelectrical energy that can be expected to be produced by a certain amount of PV modules that are already assembled on a house in Vantaa, southern Finland. This energy is then intended to be used as a complement to produce hot water in the heating system of the house beside the original GSHP system. Thus the amount of electrical energy purchased from the grid should be reduced and the compressor in the GSHP would need fewer starts which would reduce the heating cost of the GSHP system for space heating and providing hot water.The produced energy by the PV arrays in three different circuits will be charged directly to three electrical heating elements in the water storage tank of the existing system to satisfy the demand of the heating elements. The excess energy can be used to heat the water in the water storage tank to some extent which leads to a reduction of electricity consumption by the different components of the GSHP system.To increase the efficiency of the existing hybrid system, optimization of different PV configurations have been accomplished, and the results are compared. Optimization of the arrays in southern and western walls shows a DC power increase of 298 kWh/year compared with the existing PV configurations. Comparing the results from the optimization of the arrays on the western roof if the intention is to feed AC power to the components of the GSHP system shows a yearly AC power production of 1,646 kWh.This is with the consideration of no overproduction by the PV modules during the summer months. This means the optimized PV systems will be able to cover a larger part of summer demand compared with the existing system.

Use of Photovoltaic on an E-bike? : A Feasibility Study

In recent years the number of bicycles with e-motors has been increased steadily. Within the pedelec – bikes where an e-motor supports the pedaling – a special group of transportation bikes has developed. These bikes have storage boxes in addition to the basic parts of a bike. Due to the space available on top of those boxes it is possible to install a PV system to generate electricity which could be used to recharge the battery of the pedelec. Such a system would lead to grid independent charging of the battery and to the possibility of an increased range of motor support. The feasibility of such a PV system is investigated for a three wheeled pedelec delivered by the company BABBOE NORDIC.The measured data of the electricity generation of this mobile system is compared to the possible electricity generation of a stationary system.To measure the consumption of the pedelec different tracks are covered, and the energy which is necessary to recharge the bike battery is measured using an energy logger. This recharge energy is used as an indirect measure of the electricity consumption. A PV prototype system is installed on the bike. It is a simple PV stand alone system consisting of PV panel, charge controller with MPP tracker and a solar battery. This system has the task to generate as much electricity as possible. The produced PV current and voltage aremeasured and documented using a data logger. Afterwards the average PV power is calculated. To compare the produced electricity of the on-bike system to that of a stationary system, the irradiance on the latter is measured simultaneously. Due to partial shadings on the on-bike PV panel, which are caused by the driver and some other bike parts, the average power output during riding the bike is very low. It is too low to support the motor directly. In case of a similar installation as the PV prototype system and the intention always to park the bike on a sunny spot an on-bike system could generate electricity to at least partly recharge a bike battery during one day. The stationary PV system using the same PV panel could have produced between 1.25 and 8.1 times as much as the on-bike PV system. Even though the investigation is done for a very specific case it can be concluded that anon-bike PV system, using similar components as in the investigation, is not feasible to recharge the battery of a pedelec in an appropriate manner. The biggest barrier is that partial shadings on the PV panel, which can be hardly avoided during operation and parking, result in a significant reduction of generated electricity. Also the installation of the on-bike PV system would lead to increased weight of the whole bike and the need for space which is reducing the storage capacity. To use solar energy for recharging a bike battery an indirect way is giving better results. In this case a stationary PV stand alone system is used which is located in a sunny spot without shadings and adjusted to use the maximum available solar energy. The battery of the bike is charged using the corresponding charger and an inverter which provides AC power using the captured solar energy.

Photovoltaic System Design for a Contaminated Area in Falun – Comparison of South and East- West Layout

In this thesis the solar part of a large grid-connected photovoltaic system design has been done. The main purpose was to size and optimize the system and to present figures helping to evaluate the prospective project rationality, which can potentially be constructed on a contaminated area in Falun. The methodology consisted in PV market study and component selection, site analysis and defining suitable area for solar installation; and system configuration optimization based on PVsyst simulations and Levelized Cost of Energy calculations. The procedure was mainly divided on two parts, preliminary and detailed sizing. In the first part the objective was complex, which included the investigation of the most profitable component combination and system optimization due to tilt and row distance. It was done by simulating systems with different components and orientations, which were sized for the same 100kW inverter in order to make a fair comparison. For each simulated result a simplified LCOE calculation procedure was applied. The main results of this part show that with the price of 0.43 €/Wp thin-film modules were the most cost effective solution for the case with a great advantage over crystalline type in terms of financial attractiveness. From the results of the preliminary study it was possible to select the optimal system configuration, which was used in the detailed sizing as a starting point. In this part the PVsyst simulations were run, which included full scale system design considering near shadings created by factory buildings. Additionally, more complex procedure of LCOE calculation has been used here considered insurances, maintenance, time value of money and possible cost reduction due to the system size. Two system options were proposed in final results; both cover the same area of 66000 m2. The first one represents an ordinary South faced design with 1.1 MW nominal power, which was optimized for the highest performance. According to PVsyst simulations, this system should produce 1108 MWh/year with the initial investment of 835,000 € and 0.056 €/kWh LCOE. The second option has an alternative East-West orientation, which allows to cover 80% of occupied ground and consequently have 6.6 MW PV nominal power. The system produces 5388 MWh/year costs about 4500,000 € and delivers electricity with the same price of 0.056 €/kWh. Even though the EW solution has 20% lower specific energy production, it benefits mainly from lower relative costs for inverters, mounting and annual maintenance expenses. After analyzing the performance results, among the two alternatives none of the systems showed a clear superiority so there was no optimal system proposed. Both, South and East-West solutions have own advantages and disadvantages in terms of energy production profile, configuration, installation and maintenance. Furthermore, the uncertainty due to cost figures assumptions restricted the results veracity.

Solar PV Powered Air Conditioner Analysis for an Office/Classroom in a Tropical Climate

This thesis focuses on using photovoltaic produced electricity to power air conditioners in a tropical climate. The study takes place in Surabaya, Indonesia at two different locations the classroom, located at the UBAYA campus and the home office, 10 km away. Indonesia has an average solar irradiation of about 4.8 kWh/m²/day (PWC Indonesia, 2013) which is for ideal conditions for these tests. At the home office, tests were conducted on different photovoltaic systems. A series of measuring devices recorded the performance of the 800 W PV system and the consumption of the 1.35 kW air conditioner (cooling capacity). To have an off grid system many of the components need to be oversized. The inverter has to be oversized to meet the startup load of the air conditioner, which can be 3 to 8 times the operating power (Rozenblat, 2013). High energy consumption of the air conditioner would require a large battery storage to provide one day of autonomy. The PV systems output must at least match the consumption of the air conditioner. A grid connect system provides a much better solution with the 800 W PV system providing 80 % of the 3.5 kWh load of the air conditioner, the other 20 % coming from the grid during periods of low irradiation. In this system the startup load is provided by the grid so the inverter does not need to be oversized. With the grid-connected system, the PV panel’s production does not need to match the consumption of the air conditioner, although a smaller PV array will mean a smaller percentage of the load will be covered by PV. Using the results from the home office tests and results from measurements made in the classroom. Two different PV systems (8 kW and 12 kW) were simulated to power both the current air conditioners (COP 2.78) and new air conditioners (COP 4.0). The payback period of the systems can vary greatly depending on if a feed in tariff is awarded or not. If the feed in tariff is awarded the best system is the 12 kW system, with a payback period of 4.3 years and a levelized cost of energy at -3,334 IDR/kWh. If the feed in tariff is not granted then the 8 kW system is the best choice with a lower payback period and lower levelized cost of energy than the 12 kW system under the same conditions.

A user guide to simple monitoring and sustainable operation of PV-diesel hybrid systems : Handbook for system users and operators

This report contains a suggestion for a simple monitoring and evaluation guideline for PV-diesel hybrid systems. It offers system users a way to better understand if their system is operated in a way that will make it last for a long time. It also gives suggestions on how to act if there are signs of unfavourable use or failure. The application of the guide requires little technical equipment, but daily manual measurements. For the most part, it can be managed by pen and paper, by people with no earlier experience of power systems.The guide is structured and expressed in a way that targets PV-diesel hybrid system users with no, or limited, earlier experience of power engineering. It is less detailed in terms of motivations for certain choices and limitations, but rich in details concerning calculations, evaluation procedures and maintenance routines. A more scientific description of the guide can be found in a related journal article.

Analyzing the Effect of Soiling on the Performance of a Photovoltaic System of Different Module Technologies in Kalkbult, South Africa

The fact that most of the large scale solar PV plants are built in arid and semi-arid areas where land availability and solar radiation is high, it is expected the performance of the PV plants in such locations will be affected significantly due to high cell temperature as well as due to soiling. Therefore, it is essential to study how the different PV module technologies will perform in such geographical locations to ensure a consistent and reliable power delivery over the lifetime of the PV power plants. As soiling is strongly dependent on the climatic conditions of a particular location a test station, consisted of about 24 PV modules and a well-equipped weather station, was built within the fences of Scatec’s 75 MW Kalkbult solar PV plant in South Africa. This study was performed to a better understand the effect of soiling by comparing the relative power generation by the cleaned modules to the un-cleaned modules. Such knowledge can enable more quantitative evaluations of the cleaning strategies that are going to be implemented in bigger solar PV power plants. The data collected and recorded from the test station has been analyzed at IFE, Norway using a MatLab script written for this thesis project. This thesis work has been done at IFE, Norway in collaboration with Stellenbosch University in South Africa and Scatec Solar a Norwegian independent power producer company. Generally for the polycrystalline modules it is found that the average temperature corrected efficiency during the period of the experiment has been 15.00±0.08 % and for the thin film-CdTe with ARC is 11.52% and for the thin film without ARC is about 11.13% with standard uncertainty of ±0.01 %. Besides, by comparing the initial relative average efficiency of the polycrystalline-Si modules when all the modules have been cleaned for the first time and the final relative efficiency; after the last cleaning schedule which is when all the reference modules E, F, G, and H have been cleaned for the last time it is found that poly3 performs 2 % and 3 % better than poly1 and poly16 respectively, poly13 performs 1 % better than poly15 as well as poly5 and poly12 performs 1 % and 2 % better than poly10 respectively. Besides, poly5 and poly12 performs a 9 % and 11 % better than poly7. Furthermore, there is no change in performance between poly6 and poly9 as well as poly4 and poly15. However, the increase in performance of poly3 to poly1, poly13 to poly15 as well as poly5 and poly12 to poly10 is insignificant. In addition, it is found that TF22 perform 7% better than the reference un-cleaned module TF24 and similarly; TF21 performs 7% higher than TF23. Furthermore, modules with ARC glass (TF17, TF18, TF19, and TF20) shows that cleaning the modules with only distilled water (TF19) or dry-cleaned after cleaned with distilled water(TF20) decreases the performance of the modules by 5 % and 4 % comparing to its respective reference uncleanedmodules TF17 and TF18 respectively.

Photovoltaic Process Development and innovative Techniques

Photovoltaic processing is one of the processes that have significance in semiconductor process line. It is complicated due to the no. of elements involved that directly or indirectly affect the processing and final yield. So mathematically or empirically we can’t say assertively about the results specially related with diffusion, antireflective coating and impurity poisoning. Here I have experimented and collected data on the mono-crystal silicon wafers with varying properties and outputs. Then by using neural network with available experimental data output required can be estimated which is further tested by the test data for authenticity. One can say that it’s a kind of process simulation with varying input of raw wafers to get desired yield of photovoltaic mono-crystal cells.

Active cooling of low-concentrating hybrid PV/Thermal collectors

A series of measurements on the performance of solar cell string modules with low-concentrating CPC reflectors with a concentration factor C ˜ 4X have been carried out. To minimise the reduction in efficiency due to high cell temperatures, the modules were cooled. Four different way of cooling were tested:1) The thermal mass of the module was increased, 2) passive air cooling was used by introducing a small air gap between the module and the reflector, 3) the PV cells were cooled by a large cooling fin, 4) the module was actively cooled by circulating cold water on the back. The best performance was given with the actively cooled PV module which gave 2,2 times the output from a reference module while for the output from the module with a cooling fin the value was 1,8.Active cooling is also interesting due to the possibility of co-generation of thermal and electrical energy which is discussed in the paper. Simulations, based on climate data from Stockholm, latitude 59.4°N, show that there are good prospects for producing useful temperatures of the cooling fluid with only a slightly reduced performance of the electrical fraction of the PV thermal hybrid system.

Experimental performance of a string module in a CPC reflector cavity

The purpose of the work is to develop a cost effective semistationary CPC concentrator for a string PV-module. A novel method of using annual irradiation distribution diagram projected in a north-south vertical plane is developed. This method allows us easily to determine the optimum acceptance angle of the concentrator and the required number of annual tilts. Concentration ranges of 2-5x are investigated with corresponding acceptance angles between 5 and 15°. The concentrator should be tilted 2-6 times per year. Experiments has been performed on a string module of 10 cells connected in a series and equipped with a compound parabolic concentrator with C = 3.3X. Measurement show that the output will increase with a factor of 2-2.5 for the concentrator module, compared to a reference module without concentrator. If very cheap aluminium reflectors are used the costs for the PV-module can be decreased nearly by a factor of two.

PV-Wind Hybrid Systems for Swedish Locations

PV-Wind-Hybrid systems for stand-alone applications have the potential to be more cost efficient compared to PV-alone systems. The two energy sources can, to some extent, compensate each others minima. The combination of solar and wind should be especially favorable for locations at high latitudes such as Sweden with a very uneven distribution of solar radiation during the year. In this article PV-Wind-Hybrid systems have been studied for 11 locations in Sweden. These systems supply the household electricity for single family houses. The aim was to evaluate the system costs, the cost of energy generated by the PV-Wind-Hybrid systems, the effect of the load size and to what extent the combination of these two energy sources can reduce the costs compared to a PV-alone system. The study has been performed with the simulation tool HOMER developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for techno-economical feasibility studies of hybrid systems. The results from HOMER show that the net present costs (NPC) for a hybrid system designed for an annual load of 6000 kWh with a capacity shortage of 10% will vary between $48,000 and $87,000. Sizing the system for a load of 1800 kWh/year will give a NPC of $17,000 for the best and $33,000 for the worst location. PV-Wind-Hybrid systems are for all locations more cost effective compared to PV-alone systems. Using a Hybrid system is reducing the NPC for Borlänge by 36% and for Lund by 64%. The cost per kWh electricity varies between $1.4 for the worst location and $0.9 for the best location if a PV-Wind-Hybrid system is used.

Evaluation of a micro PV-Wind hybrid system in Nordic climate conditions

A one year data analysis for a micro PV-Wind hybrid system (0.52 kW + 1 kW), installed in Borlänge/Sweden is presented in this paper. The system performance was evaluated according the guidelines of the IEC 61724 standard. The parameters obtained allow a comparison with similar systems. The measurement data are also used to evaluate the sizing and operation of the hybrid system. In addition, the system was modelled in HOMER to study sizing options.