KippZonen Solar Energy Guide
KippZonen Solar Energy Guide
Precision Monitoring of Solar Radiation for Photovoltaic and Thermal Concentrating Solar Energy Systems
technology research quality control optimise locations select system type inform investment decisions maximise operating eciency schedule maintenance monitor performance output forecasting
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figure 1: energy resource map for Europe showing the annual amount of global solar radiation available
Yearly sum of global irradiation incident on optimally-inclined south-oriented photovoltaic modules [kWh/m] <600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 2200>
Yearly sum of solar electricity generated by 1 kWp system with optimally-inclined modules and performance ratio 0.75 [kWh/kWp] <450 600 750 900 1050 1200 1350 1500 1650>
ri M., Huld T.A., Dunlop E.D. Ossenbrink H.A., 2007. Solar Energy, 81, 1295-1305, http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis
Having selected potential sites based on resource maps and other criteria (access, distance to grid, climate, etc.), these locations need to be evaluated by making high quality on-site measurements of the solar radiation (energy) over at least a full year. The temporal resolution must be sucient to understand real-time variations on a daily basis (for example, a particular location may have a lot of sun, but if there is too much pollution or dust at certain times, the site may still be unsuitable). Select system type The on-site measurements need to be independent of the power generation technology so that the most appropriate type for the location can be assessed. Inform investment decisions and improve bankability Investors want the lowest uncertainty in the on-site solar resource data, equipment performance and reliability before making decisions on the locations for solar energy plants and on the most eective solar energy system types to use. Errors in the solar radiation measurements can signicantly impact upon the return on investment. High quality solar radiation data is critical to the bankability of projects.
Maximise operating eciency Reference solar monitoring instruments at a plant provide the data to the control room to assess the eciency of the energy generation chain. Schedule maintenance Good quality solar radiation inputs to each inverter allow the eciency to be continuously checked. Rapid changes may mean that a panel needs to be replaced, short-term decline usually means that cleaning is needed; longer term drift is probably due to ageing. Clearly, this requires solar radiation measurements dierent from, and better than, the panels. Monitor performance Using high quality solar radiation measurements at the plant, a database of performance can be built up, allowing more accurate forecasting of the future energy yield and nancial returns. Output forecasting Current solar radiation and meteorological measurements, and a historical database, can be used in conjunction with satellite data and weather forecasts as inputs to now-casting/forecasting models for the output of the plant. This is of particular interest to grid operators, as other power generation sources cannot be switched in instantly when clouds pass over the solar energy plant.
When passing through the atmosphere some solar radiation reaches the Earths surface undisturbed and some is scattered or absorbed by air molecules, aerosol particles, water droplets or ice crystals in clouds and ice in aircraft contrails. Gaseous molecules and aerosols
cause most of the absorption. Scattering of solar radiation by water droplets and ice crystals takes place over the whole spectral range, whereas molecules predominantly scatter short wavelengths and aerosol particles mainly scatter longer wavelengths.
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figure 2: the wavelength bands of radiation, where blue is UVB radiation, yellow is UVA, white is visible light, cream is near infrared (NIR), and pink is far infrared (FIR). The blue line represents the solar radiation at the Earths surface, the black curve represents the sensitivity of the human eye, the green curve is the spectral sensitivity of a typical photovoltaic cell, the red curve represents the sensitivity of a thermopile pyranometer with glass domes, and the pink curve shows the sensitivity of a thermopile pyrgeometer. All are normalised to an arbitrary maximum of 1.0 unit for comparison purposes.
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On a day with a clear sky the irradiance reaching the Earths surface is typically in the range from 700 to 1,300 W/m at local solar noon; depending on the latitude, altitude and time of year. For observations of radiation at the Earths surface, two wavelength regions are dened; short-wave radiation, of wavelengths from 300 nm to 4,000 nm, and long-wave radiation from 4,500 nm (4.5 m) to more than 40 m. The short-wave radiation includes the ultraviolet, visible and near infrared wavelength bands. The solar radiation reaching the Earths surface is partly reected and partly absorbed, depending on the reectivity (albedo) of the surface. Snow and ice are good reectors (high albedo), dark and/or rough surfaces in general reect less eciently (except
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Some of these processes are easily observed. Short wavelengths are scattered much more strongly by molecules in the atmosphere (Rayleigh scattering) than longer wavelengths, so when the sun is high the diuse sky appears blue. However, when the sun is near the horizon so much blue is scattered by the thick atmosphere that the skies in the morning and evening appear red.
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These processes signicantly aect the spectrum of radiation that reaches the Earths surface. When the sun is directly overhead the atmospheric depth/thickness is at a minimum, and is dened as having a Relative Air Mass of 1.0 for that location. As the sun moves down towards the horizon, the air mass increases to approximately 11 times larger and the eects of absorption and scattering are correspondingly greater.
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This combination of instruments, for GHI, DNI and DHI makes a solar monitoring station, to which a horizontally mounted pyrgeometer may be added to measure the FIR long-wave radiation to WMO specications. A pyrgeometer is similar in principle to a pyranometer but the spectral response, shown by the pink line in gure 2, is determined by a silicon window (or dome) that transmits far infrared radiation and has a special internal coating to block the short-wave radiation.
The low level millivolt analogue outputs from the radiometers are normally connected to a data logger that records and stores the readings. Data may be forwarded in real-time via telemetry or a wired connection or periodically downloaded for processing and analysis. The unique new generation of Smart radiometers from Kipp & Zonen can be interfaced directly to digital data acquisition systems.
For these technologies it is necessary to measure the direct normal irradiance (DNI) with a pyrheliometer and an automatic sun tracker. The pyrheliometer should be ISO First Class, such as the Kipp & Zonen CHP 1 and Smart SHP1, which can measure daily totals of solar irradiance with an uncertainty of 1 %. The sun tracker should have a pointing accuracy of 0.1 , as with the Kipp & Zonen SOLYS 2 and 2AP models. Usually a pyranometer is installed on top of the Sun tracker to measure GHI. A second pyranometer with a shading assembly can be added to measure the diuse horizontal irradiance (DHI). A third pyranometer can be mounted on the side of the sun tracker, pointing at the sun, to give the same moving tilted global view as seen by a 2-axis PV panel.
Traditional photovoltaic (PV) semi-conductor materials are mainly sensitive in the visible and near-infrared parts of the spectrum, from approximately 400 to 1100 nm with a peak just beyond the visible radiation, as shown by the green line in gure 2. However, depending upon the sky conditions, there can be signicant energy available from the ultraviolet radiation below 400 nm and also from near infrared radiation beyond 1100 nm. Therefore, materials development is pushing to make use of this resource. Increasingly, in PV research, a Kipp & Zonen CUV 5 total UV radiometer is being included to monitor the irradiance from 280 to 400 nm. Concentrating solar power (CSP) systems typically use trough reectors or tracking mirrors (heliostats) to focus the solar radiation onto a collector tube or tower, in which a liquid or gas is heated to very high temperatures (400 to 1,000 C). The hot medium is usually used to generate steam that drives conventional turbines to generate electricity. Because of their reective design, it is easy to understand that there is much less wavelength dependence for CSPs than for PV installations. They can focus all the available DNI UV, visible and NIR short-wave radiation from the sun and, on a cloudy day, the long-wave radiation from the atmosphere and clouds in the view of the reectors and mirrors. For these systems a CGR 3 or CGR 4 pyrgeometer may be added to measure the long-wave radiation. For solar site prospecting a simple automatic weather station is often added. This provides additional information to help with location decisions. PV cell eciency is temperature dependent
and high wind speeds may require very rugged panel mountings or be likely to cause damage. The sites are often remote and the prospecting system may need to operate from solar panels and batteries. Kipp & Zonen can supply solutions from a single pyranometer, to complete solar monitoring stations, including meteorological parameters, data acquisition and storage, telemetry solutions, and data visualisation. Maintenance of Kipp & Zonen radiometers is simple; keep the domes and windows clean and periodically replace the desiccant that keeps the radiometers dry inside. Cleaning frequency can be reduced, and the uptime of good quality data increased, by using a ventilation unit such as the Kipp & Zonen CVF 3 that blows clean air over the pyranometer dome to help keep o dust and to remove raindrops and dew. The air ow can be heated to melt snow and frost.
Apart from the maintenance described, regular calibration is required to ensure that the radiometers operate within their specications. Kipp & Zonen recommends recalibration of its radiometers at least every two years. All Kipp & Zonen calibration certicates are supplied with full uncertainty calculations and traceability to the standards at the World Radiation Centre in Davos, Switzerland.
There is often a high quality automatic weather station that provides local historical and trending information that can be used with the solar radiation data as inputs to now-casting and forecasting models for the output of the plant. A large site may have two or more weather stations at the perimeter. The radiometers for various solar power generation types are the same as those discussed in the previous section for research and site prospecting. In general, commercial power plants will have a complete solar monitoring station for GHI, DNI and DHI. Because these instruments are part of an industrial process there will usually be at least two systems, for redundancy and to provide backup when one set or radiometers is o-site being calibrated. The other requirement is for pyranometers to check the eciency of panels and arrays in PV plants. These could be xed or tracking installations. Normally, each inverter has an input for a reference pyranometer that is used to calculate the eciency of the panels connected to that inverter. The pyranometer is usually mounted on one of the panel supports so that it has the same view as the PV panels. There may be a large number of these pyranometers on a plant, so instead of the ISO Secondary Standard Kipp & Zonen CMP 11, CMP 21, CMP 22 and Smart SMP11 models, the ISO Second Class CMP 3 or Smart SMP3 are used. Pyranometers, such as the CMP 3 and SMP3, have largely replaced the reference cells that were often used for the inverter inputs to calculate system eciencies. There are several reasons for this.
PV modules are characterised under Standard Test Conditions using solar simulators that can seriously overestimate the module performance under operational conditions with varying temperatures, dirt accumulation, linearity eects, etc. A reference cell of the same type will have the same problems, get dirty at the same rate and age at the same rate, therefore the eciency will often show 100 %, which is unrealistic. There are now many types of PV panels and reference cells, so it is dicult to compare one type with another, particularly when they have dierent (limited) spectral responses. This spectral mismatch can easily be 10 % and lead to calculated eciencies of over 100 %! In fact reference cells and PV panels are themselves often calibrated against a Kipp & Zonen pyranometer at the test facility. Because thermopile pyranometers have a broad and at spectral response they measure all the solar irradiance available to the PV panel and it is easy to see how eciently any panel of any type is using that energy, and meaningful comparisons can be made. The at PV panels get dirty much more quickly than pyranometers with their dome construction. This means that it is possible to see when the panel eciency is reducing in the short-term due to dirt, in the long-term due to ageing, or sudden changes that may be caused by panel or inverter failure. Some International Standards, such as IEC 61724 Photovoltaic system performance monitoring - Guidelines for measurement, data exchange and analysis, specify that pyranometers must be used for the eciency calculations.
Kipp & Zonen has been designing and manufacturing solar radiation measurement equipment since 1924 and has supplied its instruments for many decades to most of the leading meteorological, climatological and atmospheric science organisations, research institutes and energy companies around the globe. In addition to radiometers and sun trackers, Kipp & Zonen provides a wide range of accessories, data loggers and interfacing solutions. Our instrument calibrations are fully traceable to the World Radiometric Reference at the World Radiation Centre in Davos, Switzerland, and to relevant international standards.
System congurations
Basic Solar Monitoring
For xed (tilted) panels 1 horizontal pyranometer for global radiation 1 tilted pyranometer for tilted global radiation Recommended instruments: CMP 3 | SMP3 | CMP 6 | CMP 11 | SMP11
For concentrating and / or tracking systems 1 horizontal pyranometer for global radiation 1 pyrheliometer with sun tracker for direct radiation 1 tilted pyranometer tted to sun tracker 1 horizontal pyrgeometer for infrared radiation (thermal systems) Recommended instruments: CMP 11 | SMP11 | CHP 1 | SHP1 | SOLYS 2 | CGR 4
Includes global, direct, diuse and global tilted measurement 1 horizontal pyranometer for global radiation 1 pyrheliometer with sun tracker for direct radiation 1 tilted pyranometer tted to sun tracker 1 shaded pyranometer for diuse radiation (shading assembly on sun tracker) 1 horizontal pyrgeometer for infrared radiation (thermal systems) Recommended instruments: CMP 11 | SMP11 | CMP 21 | CHP 1 | SHP1 | SOLYS 2 | CGR 4
Traceability
All Kipp & Zonen solar radiation instruments are fully traceable to the World Radiometric Reference (WRR) in Davos, Switzerland, where Kipp & Zonen instruments form part of the World Standard Groups.
Kipp & Zonen B.V. Delftechpark 36, 2628 XH Delft P.O. Box 507, 2600 AM Delft The Netherlands
T: +31 (0) 15 2755 210 F: +31 (0) 15 2620 351 [email protected] www.kippzonen.com
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