Chapter-3 Solar PV System

Chapter outlines
▪ Introduction to Solar Power

▪ Physics of the sun, The solar constant

▪ Extraterrestrial and Terrestrial Solar radiation

▪ Solar Radiation on Tilted surface

▪ Instrument to measure solar radiation and sun shine

▪ Solar radiation data

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 Introduction to Solar energy
• Sun is an abundant source of energy and it is inexhaustible.

• Solar energy supports all life on earth and is the basis for every form of energy.

• The sun makes plants grow, which are burned as fuel or rot in swamps and are
compressed underground for millions of years to become coal and oil.

• Heat from the sun causes temperature differences between areas, causing the
wind to blow.

• Water evaporates because of the sun, water vapors are carried to high elevations,
and when the water vapors condense and precipitate as rainfall.
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Cont..
• The water rushes down towards the sea through rivers, spin turbines to
generating electricity.

• Thus becomes clear that hydroelectricity is an indirect form of solar energy.

The sun is often regarded as the ultimate answer to our energy problems.

• Sun provides a continuous supply of energy that far exceeds our current energy
demand.

• It is free of cost, available in plenty, found everywhere and has no political

barrier.

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 Important features of Solar Energy:

• Solar energy is the radiant light and heat from the sun that has been
harnessed by humans using technologies.

• Sun the source of ‘Solar energy’ is a huge, glowing sphere of hot gas with
1.4million km diameter.

• Most of this gas is hydrogen (about 70%) and helium (about 28%).

• Due to Nuclear fusion reaction of Hydrogen with Helium internal

temperatures reach over 20 million Kelvin.

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Cont..
• The resulting loss of mass due to fusion is converted into about 3.8 × 1020
MW of electromagnetic energy (power) that radiates outward from the
surface into space.
• The spectrum of solar radiation is close to that of a blackbody @ 5800 K.
• The amount of energy reaching the surface of the earth every hour is
greater than the amount of energy used by the earth's population over an
entire year.

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 Terms used in Solar Energy

•Irradiance: is the rate at which radiant energy is incident on a surface per unit
area (W/m2) and is represented by the symbol G.

•Irradiation: is the incident energy per unit area (J/m2) on a surface -

determined by integration of irradiance over a specified time, usually an hour or
a day.

•Insolation: is a term used to indicate ‘Solar Energy Irradiation’. (An

abbreviation for ‘Incident Solar Radiation’)

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 Extra Terrestrial &Terrestrial Solar Radiation

• The solar radiation incident on the earth's atmosphere which is known as

Extraterrestrial Solar Radiation is relatively constant, the radiation at the earth's
surface which is known as Terrestrial Solar Radiation varies widely due to:

• Atmospheric effects, including absorption and scattering.

• Local variations in the atmosphere, such as water vapour, clouds, and
pollution.
• Latitude of the location and
• Season of the year and the time of day.
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 Characteristics of Solar Radiation & Radiation Spectrum
• The characteristics of Solar Radiation are best explained with the help of the
Solar spectrum plots which give data on intensity as spectral content.

• The solar spectrum typically extends from the IR to the UV region, wave -
length range from 3 μm to 0.2 μm. UV (7%), visible (47%), and infrared IR
(46%)

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Cont..
• Air Mass Ratio: The terrestrial spectrum also depends on how much
atmosphere the radiation has to pass through to reach the surface.

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 Geometry of the Earth and Sun

• Earth’s orbit around the Sun: The earth revolves around the sun in an elliptical
orbit, making one revolution every 365.25 days.

• The point at which the earth is nearest the sun, the perihelion, occurs on
January 2, at which point it is a little over 147 million km away.

• At the other extreme, the aphelion, which occurs on July 3, the earth is about
152 million km from the sun.

• Calculated by: d = 1.5 × 108 [1 + 0.017 sin {360(n − 93)/365}] km, w

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Cont..

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 Important terms in Earth’s orbit around the sun:

• Solstice: Either of the two times in the year, the summer solstice ( June 21st) and
the winter solstice ( December 21st), when the sun reaches its highest or lowest
point in the sky at noon, marked by the longest and shortest days.
• Equinox: The time or date (twice each year) at which the sun crosses the
equator, when day and night are of equal length (21st September and 21st
March).

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Cont..

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 Solar Look Angles
• We can use this information of Solar Look Angles to fix up the best tilt angle
(orientation) for solar modules so as to expose them to the highest insolation.

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 Cont..
• The angle formed between the plane of the equator and a line drawn
from the center of the sun to the center of the earth is called the solar
declination, δ.

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 Effect of Collector Tilt
• Except for locations near the equator, laying a PV panel flat on a horizontal surface
is not the best option.
• Tilting: The panel towards the equator, i.e. towards the south for northern
hemisphere location, increases the total amount of annual solar energy collection and
smooth out the difference between summer and winter collections.

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 Altitude Angle βN
• The altitude angle βN is the angle between the sun and the local horizon
directly beneath the sun. altitude angle βN as: β N = 90◦ − L + δ
• Where L is the latitude of the site. Notice in the figure the term zenith is
introduced, which refers to an axis drawn directly overhead at a site.

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 Example-1

•Find the optimum tilt angle for a south facing photovoltaic module in Tucson
(latitude 32.1◦) at solar noon on March 1.

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 Solar position at any time of day
• The location of the sun at any time of day can be described in terms of its

altitude angle β and its azimuth angle φs.

• The subscript ‘s’ in the azimuth angle helps us remember that this is the
azimuth angle of the sun.
• By convention, the azimuth angle is positive in the morning with the sun in
the east and negative in the afternoon with the sun in the west.

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Cont..

• The following two equations allow us to compute the altitude and azimuth
angles of the sun. sin β = cos L cos δ cos H + sin L sin δ

• sin φS = cos δ sin H /cos β

• Hour angle H = (150 / hour) x (hours before solar noon)

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 Assignment Question

• Find the altitude angle and azimuth angle for the sun at 3:00 P.M. solar time in
Boulder, Colorado (latitude 400) on the summer solstice.

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 Atmospheric effects on Solar Radiation
• Atmosphere has several effects on solar radiation on Earth’s surface. The major
effects for our Solar Cell applications are:
• A reduction in the power of the solar radiation due to absorption, scattering and
reflection in the atmosphere.
• A change in the spectral content of the solar radiation due to greater absorption
or scattering of radiant energy at some wavelengths.
• Introduction of a diffused or indirect component into the solar radiation.
• Local variations in the atmosphere (such as water vapor, clouds and pollution)
have additional effects on the incident power, spectrum and directionality.
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Clear sky absorption and scattering of incident sunlight

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 Solar Radiation Measurement and Instrumentation
• Pyranometer or Solarimeter: measures the total radiation arriving from all
directions, including both direct and diffuse components i.e. it measures all
of the radiation that is of potential use to a Solar Energy collecting system.

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 Cont..
• Pyrheliometer: Has a small field of view, around 6°, and tracks the sun continuously
and thus measures the direct normal beam radiation.

• Data is important for focusing collectors since their solar resource is pretty much
restricted to just the beam portion of incident radiation.
• Pyrheliometer measurements are also needed to predict the performance of
tracking concentrator photovoltaic systems.

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Cont..
• Shading-ring pyranometer:
• A ring-shaped hoop sunshield is added to a pyranometer to exclude direct sunlight
and thereby permits measurement of the diffuse components.
• When this reading is subtracted from that of a standard pyranometer, the result is
the direct solar radiation.

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 Solar Radiation Data base
• Creation of solar energy data base at different locations is very important to select
suitable locations for setting up of Solar power plants.

• Solar irradiation data is needed at all levels of solar power development, from initial
planning to large-scale project development or the calculations needed to size smaller
systems.

• Solar energy data base , including Global Horizontal Irradiation (GHI) , Direct
Normal Irradiation (DNI) and PVOUT is now available globally, for free.

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 Solar energy use can be classified as

I. Direct solar energy use; solar energy is captured directly as sunlight and used
for heating, generating electricity and cooling
II. Indirect use of solar energy derived from natural processes driven by the sun,
for example wind, biomass, waves, hydroelectric power.

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 Direct solar energy
• Direct use of solar energy can be used through various devices broadly
directed into three types of systems a. passive, b. active c. photovoltaic.

A. Passive solar energy

• As you know some of the earliest uses of solar energy were passive in nature
such as to evaporate sea water for producing salt and to dry food and clothes.

• The more recent passive uses of solar energy is for cooking, heating, cooling
and for the daylighting of homes and buildings.

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Cont..

B. Active use of solar energy (heating)

•Active solar heating and cooling systems rely on solar collectors which are
usually mounted on roofs.
• Such systems also require pumps and motors to move the fluids or blow air by
fan in order to deliver the captured heat.

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Cont..
• The main application of these systems is to provide hot water, primarily for
domestic use.

• Active solar heating is extensively used in India, Japan, Israel, Australia and
Southern United States having sunny climate.

• Active use of solar energy (electricity)

• Solar energy is used to generate high temperature heat or electricity.

• Solar collectors in sunny areas can produce high temperature heat to spin turbines
for producing electricity but cost of such devices are high.
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Cont.…
• Several solar thermal systems can collect and transform radiant energy received
from the sun into high temperature thermal (heat) energy, which can be used
directly or converted into electricity.

• Huge arrays of computer-controlled mirrors called heliostats track the sun and
focus sunlight on a central heat collection tower.

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Cont..
Solar energy for cooling

• A solar collector can also be used for cooling.

• In this system, energy from the sunlight powers a small heat engine similar to
an electric motor of a refrigerator.
• The heat engine drives a piston that compresses a special vapor into a liquid;
the liquid then re-vaporizes and draws heat out of the surrounding air.

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