Chapter 4: solar-to-Electrical

Energy Conversion
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Solar resource and photovoltaic
• Learning Out come :
– After this lecture, you will be able to…
 Apply the knowledge and equations to locate the Sun
 Describe how insolation is affected by
 direct-beam, diffuse and reflected radiations
 Identify characteristics of photovoltaic materials and
analyze their electrical characteristics through circuit
models
 Use equivalent circuits to model a PV cell Describe how to
configure PV cells and characteristics of each configuration
 Describe the impacts of temperature,
insolation and shading on the I-V Curves
 Appreciate the I-V characteristics for different loads
 Understand how a power converter serves as
a Maximum Power Point Tracker (MPPT)
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Why Solar Energy?
• Rising cost of fossil fuels
• Falling cost of solar energy
• Reduced dependence on energy imports
• Less dependent on extensive grid infrastructure
• Suitable for decentralized deployment
• Climate change!

Of course, most of this goes for other renewables

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Attenuation of solar radiation as it 6

passes through the atmosphere.

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The fraction of the energy from the sun that

reaches the earth in just one day is enough to
cover the energy use of the world in a whole
year.”

However, not all the energy of the sun that reaches the
earth can be used effectively
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Big share of solar energy
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solar radiation
• The output of sun is 2.8×10 power of 23KW.
• The energy reaching the earth is 1.5×10 power of 18
KWH/year.
• When light travels from outer space to earth, solar
energy is lost because of following reasons:
• Scattering: The rays collide with particles present
in atmosphere
• Absorption: Because of water vapor there is
absorption
• Cloud cover: The light rays are diffused because of
clouds.
• Reflection: When the light rays hit the mountains
present on the earth surface there is reflection.
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Solar radiation
• Detailed information about radiation availability
of any location is essential for the design and
economic evaluation of a solar energy system
• Long term measurements are possible by
instruments
• Otherwise various model based on available
climate data can be used to estimate solar radiation
availability
• Incident solar radiation /insolation/ measured as
irradiance energy per unit area per unit time
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Continued….
• The average amount of solar radiation falling on a surface
normal to the ray of the sun outside the atmosphere of
the earth at mean earth distance Do is called solar
constant Io=1377 w/m.sq
• The atmosphere absorbs and reflects much of it, and by
the time it reaches the Earth’s surface, it is reduced to a
maximum of about 1000W/m2
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Continued..
• As extraterrestrial solar radiation I passing through
the atmosphere part of it is reflected back into
space ,part of it get scattered by molecules of air
,water vapor ,aerosols and dust particles
• Part of solar radiation that reach surface of earth
with out change in direction is called beam
or direct radiation
• The scattered diffuse radiation reach the surface of
the earth is called diffuse radiation.
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Direct and diffuse radiation
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• Factors that affect the amount of solar radiation an

area receives include the area’s latitude, cloudy
periods, humidity and atmospheric clarity

• The total amount of solar energy that a location

receives may vary from season to season, but is
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Continued…
• Radiation is composed of millions of high-energy particles called
photons.
• Each unit of solar radiation, or photon, carries a fixed amount of
energy.
• Depending on the amount of energy that it carries, solar radiation
falls into different categories including infrared (i.e. heat),
visible (radiation that we can see) and ultraviolet (very high
energy radiation).
• The solar spectrum describes all of these groups of radiation
energy that are constantly arriving from the sun, and categorizes
them according to their wavelength.
• Different solar cells and solar energy collecting devices make use
of different parts of the solar spectrum
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UV (7%),
visible (47%), and infrared IR
(46%) portions of the
spectrum

The visiblespectrum, which lies between the UV and IR,

ranges from 0.38 μm (violet) to 0.78 μm (red).
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Continued..
• The graph shown gives the amount of power
present in different wavelengths of
radiation.
• It can be seen from the graph that 50% of solar
energy is in the form of thermal energy .
• Solar PV captures the energy in visible region.
Solar thermal captures energy in infrared region.
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Solar radiation
• It is an amount of solar energy received on a unit
surface expressed in units of kWh/m2.
• Solar irradiance is essentially the solar insolation
(power) integrated with respect to time.
• When solar irradiance data is represented on an
average daily basis, the value is often called PEAK
SUN HOURS (PSH) and can be thought of as the
number of equivalent hours/day that solar insolation is
at its peak level of 1kW/m2.
• The worldwide average daily value of solar irradiance
on optimally oriented surfaces is approximately 5
kWh/m2or 5 PSH. Solar irradiance is denoted by ' H '.
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Peak sun hour (PSH)
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Solar irradiance
• Solar irradiance refers to the solar radiation actually
striking a surface, or the power received per unit area
from the sun.
• This is measured in watts per square metre (W/m2) or
kilowatts per square metre (kW/m2).
• The closer the solar incident angle is to 90°, the more
energy is received on the surface
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Type of radiation
• Direct-beam radiation
• a straight line through atmosphere to receiver
• Diffuse radiation
• scattered by molecules in the atmosphere
• Reflected radiation
• bounced off the surface (e.g. ground) in front of the
collector
• Solar collectors that focus sunlight usually operate on
just the beam portion of the incoming radiation since
those rays are the only ones that arrive from a
consistent direction
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Radiation Measurement
• We know that the atmosphere is made up of ions
and other particles including clouds.
• when the incident radiation passes through the
atmosphere, some radiation penetrates and falls
directly on to the panel, some radiation diffuses in
atmosphere and travels to the panel and some
radiation gets reflected from the surroundings of
the panel and reaches the panel, the effect being
called albedo effect.
• It becomes extremely important to know the
amount of energy that has reached the panel
through all the paths
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Continued..
• In PV system design it is essential to know the
amount of sunlight available at a particular
location at a given time.
• The two common methods which characterize
solar radiation are the solar radiance (or radiation)
and solar insolation
• The solar radiance is an instantaneous power
density in units of kW/m2
• The solar insolation is the total amount of solar
energy received at a particular location during a
specified time period, often in units of
kWh/(m2 day)
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Continued..
• The solar radiance varies throughout the day from 0
kW/m2 at night to a maximum of about 1 kW/m2
• The solar radiance is strongly dependent on location
and local weather
• Solar radiance measurements consist of global
and/or direct radiation measurements taken
periodically throughout the day
• The measurements are taken using either a
pyranometer (measuring global radiation) and/or a
pyrheliometer (measuring direct radiation).
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pyranometer
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Air mass ratio
• The length of the path h2 taken by the sun’s rays
as they pass through the atmosphere, divided by
the minimum possible path length h1, which
occurs when the sun is directly overhead, is called
the air mass ratio, m.
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Air mass ratio
• β = the altitude angle of the sun
• Thus, an air mass ratio of 1 (designated “AM1”)
means that the sun is directly overhead. By
convention, AM0 means no atmosphere; that is, it
is the extraterrestrial solar spectrum.
• Often, an air mass ratio of 1.5 is assumed for an
average solar spectrum at the earth’s surface. With
AM1.5, 2% of the incoming solar energy is in the
UV portion of the spectrum, 54% is in the visible,
and 44% is in the infrared.
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continued…

• There are several factors on which radiation energy is

dependent. They are as follows:
• Latitude and longitude of the geographical location.
• Climatic conditions such as presence of clouds,
water vapor etc.
• Time of the day.
• Time of the year.
• Angle of tilt.
• Collector design.
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Continued…
• Diffuse radiation is assumed to be coming from
essentially all directions to the angle doesn’t
matter; it is typically between 6% and 14% of the
direct value.
• Reflected radiation comes from a nearby surface,
and depends on the surface reflectance, , ranging
down from 0.8 for clean snow to 0.1 for a shingle
roof.
• To reduce reflected and diffused radiation
tracking system is used. Single axis or dual ax
tracker
• Reading assignment ;Master book page
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Tracking Systems
• Most residential solar PV systems have a fixed
mount, but sometimes tracking systems are cost
effective
• Tracking systems are either single axis (usually
with a rotating polar mount [parallel to earth’s axis
of rotation), or two axis (horizontal [altitude, up-
down] and vertical [azimuth, east-west]
• tracking system benefits are about 20% more for a
single axis, and 25 to 30% more for a two axis
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Monthly and Annual Insolation

• For a fixed system the total annual output is
somewhat insensitive to the tilt angle, but there is
a substantial variation in when the most energy
is generated
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Single axis Solar tracker
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Dual Single axis Solar tracker
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Worldwide Annual Insolation

In 2011 worldwide PV capacity was about 70GW,

with about 1/3 in Germany (25GW), 12.8 GW in
Italy, 5 GW in Japan,
4.5 GW in Spain and 4 GW in the US
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•Solar
Photovoltaic
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Application area of PV
Off Grid system
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Pv application

Grid connected system

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Photovoltaic main segement
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PHOTOVOLTAIC
• Photovoltaic definition- a material or device that is
capable of converting the energy contained in
photons of light into an electrical voltage and
current
• Electrons absorb energy to jump bands
• Top-band where electrons contribute to
electric current electron gets Energy from photons
• Hole-electron pair
• • Energy of photons, E
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Energy-band Diagrams
 Conduction band – top band, here electrons
contribute to current flow, empty at absolute zero for
semiconductors
 An electron must acquire the band gap energy to jump
across to the conduction band, measured in electron-
volts eV
 Electrons create holes when they jump to
the conduction band
 Photons with enough energy create hole-electron pairs
in a semiconductor

Silicon band gap

energy is 1.12 eV
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PHOTOVOLTAIC
• Absorption of photon promotes electron to higher
energy (excited state), which should be separated
from the ground state by an energy gap (e.g.
band gap in semiconductors).
• Charges are separated, collected and extracted
to external circuit and do electrical work.
• It extracts solar energy only from photons
with energy sufficient to bridge the band gap.
Quantity Si GaAs CdTe InP
Band gap (eV) 1.12 1.42 1.5 1.35
Cut-off wavelength (μm) 1.11 0.87 0.83 0.92
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What are Solar Cells? Loa
d
-
+
• Solar cells are diodes

type

type
• Light (photons) generate free

n-

p-
carriers (electrons and holes)
which are collected by the electric
field of the diode junction
• The output current is a fraction
of this photocurrent
• The output voltage is a fraction
of the diode built-in voltage

• The output voltage is a

fraction of the diode
built-in voltage
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Photovoltaic Materials
• Need an electric field to drive electrons
• Inserting impurities to pure silicon unstable
• Elements in column III and V of periodic table
• III – (e-) acceptors and V – (e-) donors
• It is a p-n junction diode
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Photovoltaic Materials
• Classification by crystal type:
• Crystalline
 Single-crystal silicon (e.g. Sharp NE-R5E3E)
• High-purity polycrystalline is melted
in a quartz crucible 200-400μm, 15-20% energy
conversion efficiency
 Polycrystalline silicon (e.g. BP SX10M)
• Small grains of single crystalline silicon
• 1/3 thickness of single-crystal silicon, 10-14%
efficiency
 Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) (e.g. space application)
• A few μm thick layer, higher light absorption rate ,
25-30% efficiency.
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Continued..
• Thin-film or amorophos (e.g. UniSolar US64)
• Deposited on low-cost supporting layer such as
glass or metal
• Poorer cell conversion efficiency (non-single-crystal
structure
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t
• M.ulti-crystalline Multi-crystalline Mono-crystalline
cells cells (alkaline
cells (acidic etched) etched) size:
size: size: (150 x 150 mm²)
(125 x 125 156 x 156 mm² 156 x 156 mm²
mm²) 210 x 210 mm² with rounded
(150 x 150 corners
mm²)
156 x 156 mm²
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Record laboratory thin film cell
efficiencies
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Silicon Solar Cell Max Efficiency
• For an Air
Mass
Ratio of 1.5,
49.6% is
maximum the possible
fraction of the
sun’s energy that
can be collected
with a silicon solar
cell
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Multijunction Cells
- - - -
+ + +
Problem: Single junction +

type
type

type

type
type

type

type

type
loses all of the photon

p-
n-

p-

n-
p-

n-

p-

n-
energy
the gapabove
energy.

• Solution: Use a Energy

(eV) 1.1 0.
series of 18
0 4.0 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.7 1.5 1.0 9
1.3
cells of different gaps. 16
0
• Each cell captures the 14
0
light transmitted from Intensity (mW/m2-
12
0
above. 10

But… can’t just use a

Top Cell (1.9 eV
0

Cell #4
(0.6 eV
8

gap)
graded gap. Allows 0
m)

6
electrons to escape to 0

Cell #2
(1.4 eV
4
low gap region.

Cell #3
(1.0 eV
gap)

gap)

gap)
Need separate 2
0

cells. 0
30 50 700 900 130 150
0 0 1100 0 0
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Practical Data
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I-V characteristics of solar cell

 Short circuit current ISC

 Open circuit voltage
VOC
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Power curve
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PV Equivalent Circuit
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Series and Shunt Resistance Effects
• Parallel (RP) – current drops
by ΔI=V/RP

• adding parallel resistance

causes the current at any
given voltage to drop by
V/RP
• Series (RS)S – voltage drops
by ΔV=IR
• Adding series resistance to
the PV equivalent circuit
causes the voltage at any
given current to shift to the
left by ΔV=IR S
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Impact of Temperature
Impact of irradiance on I-V 119

charcterstics
 Impact of shading in I-V 120

characterstics
• Shading causes PV to act as a resistor instead of a
current source, can reduce output power by > 50%
Blocking Diodes -- protection from low voltage strings121

Diodes can be used to

prevent current from
strong arrays flowing
through weak array
segments. However,
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Bypass Diodes -- protection from low current strings
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By pass diode
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Impact of bypass diode on shading
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Cells to Modules to Arrays
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Interconnect Schemes
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lamination
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Final Product Module
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Configuration of solar module
 Minimizing losses in module 130

connection
What if I1 < I2 = I3 = I4=… ? In serious connected cells
• Series connection
 The cell with the smallest current will
dominate the whole string
 Loss in current and power

 Matching cells with same current is

of
utmost importance

Same is true for shading due to dirt /dust / trees

/…
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Continued..
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Operation point when load applied
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Maximum power point

Pmax  Vmpp 

I mpp

Maximum power point is tracked by a

device called maximum power point
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Fill factor
Power curve P(V)
Illuminated I(V)
curve
ISC

Vmpp  IMPP
FF 

[A]
Voc 
I mpp P=I·V

I
I sc

[W]
P

Pmax  VOC  I SC 
FF V VMPP VOC
[V]
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Power conversion efficiency
Power curve
P(V)
 Short circuit current I Illuminated
cu
I(V)

 Open circuit voltage V SC

ISC
 Maximum power point MPP OC
IMPP

[A]
 Fill factor: Vmpp  P=I·

I
FF  V
Voc 
I mpp

[W]
P
Vmpp  I sc VOC  SC
I 
 Efficiency:  cell I mpp

Pin

FF
Pin
V VMPP
[V]
=ration of generated electric power vs. incident
radiant power
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Continued..

Dependence on
Irradiation
intensity:

Main effect on:

JSC (Generation
rate)

Dependence
on
temperature:

Main effect
on: VOC
(Fermi Level
splitting)
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Efficiency limit
Solar cell is semiconductor
device:
 no absorption 
EPhoton < EGap EUsed = 0
 absorption &
EPhoton > thermalization  EUsed = EGap

EGap
Thermalizati
on
Photo Photo
n e- n
EC EC

EV EV
e- e-

EPhoton > EPhoton <

EGap EGap
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Efficiency limit
Commercially available modules, area141
A = 1 m2
material  [%]
manner
Si single 18 (very good)
crystalline 13 (typical)

polycrystalline 14 (very good)

(coarse grained) 11 (typical)

polycystalline ? (not on market yet)

(fine
grained)
amorphous 8-9 (very good)
5-6 (typical)

Cu(In1-x,Gax)Se2 polycrystalline 10
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Loss processes
- reflection
optical - (contact) shadowing
(Jsc) - insufficient absorption

Rs, Rp (ohmic and non-ohmic)

electrical - absorber (FF) -

emitter
- contact
LOSSES

(interfac
es)
- metalliz
ation,
wiring

recombin
ation
electronic - bulk (volume, grain boundaries) (Voc) -
surfaces (front, back)
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Factors determine power output
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Continued..
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Factor that affect performance of PV module.
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Continued..
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Continued..
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Continued..
How solar cell produced from silicon 151
crystal
153
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performance of an array
Performance of PV array affected by
– module performance mismatch and actual irradiance
temperature effects
– Panel orientation, panel tilt, dust on the panels,
aging of
the panels, installation location, electrical losses,
soiling losses, inverter efficiency, transmission losses,
and
module degradation
• To maximize performance of the PV modules we
have take care of the above issue which are under
our control
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The
End