Solar Energy Conversion Techniques and Practical Approaches to Design Solar PV Power Station

Abstract

AbstractThe sunlight is the primary energy element that controls the global environment and living system. Bridling the solar energy for high-temperature water and electricity could give a sustainable, low carbon energy source and presents an interesting way of relieving environmental change. The solar technology is to track maximum power of sun technologies which is used to produce heat, light, and power. Renewable energy sources like solar energy play a great role in providing energy solutions. As now, there are a wide variety of collectors and utilizations of sunlight-based energy. This chapter planned to overview on solar energy systems, according to types of collectors and applications used. This part of the chapter describes various solar energy systems. The different systems are classified according to the type of collector used and the type of application. Solar water heater, space heating, space cooling and refrigeration, solar cooker, dryer, concentrated solar power, and solar photovoltaic are some of the applications of solar energy.Some of the popular technologies in the present days are electrical power generation by using renewable sources. The renewable sources like solar, wind, and tidal are contributing at higher ratio compared to the other energies throughout the world. Out of these, the solar has the leading role when compared to the wind, tidal, and other sources as they are having limitations based on the availability. But solar energy is abundantly available throughout the globe, and the installation ratio is very high than the others. At present the cost of energy production from solar is also reduced to 70% from 80% when compared to the earlier technologies, so most of the future power demand is ready to be supplied from solar power system.The technology adopted by solar power plant is, that is, when the solar radiance strikes the semiconductor (solar cell), a flow of electrons takes place through a load (closed loop), called as transformation of energy from solar to electrical (electric power).The energy produced in this procedure is in DC nature at low voltage (LV) level so it has to increase the voltage level by using a power converter called the DC-DC converter (DC transformer). As the most of the loads and transmission system is alternating current (AC) in nature, the available DC has to be converted into AC by means of a power converter (inverter), and later it may be connected to grid (on-grid) or to the load with a battery backup (off-grid).This chapter mainly covers with the design of a 100 kWp solar power plant, including site calculations, layout of electrical structure, estimation of cable rating (both AC and DC), choosing an inverter rating, and installation procedure for both on-grid and off-grid connections. Also the protection equipment against the unusual weather conditions and fault cases in the generation and distribution of solar electrical power is discussed.All the erection processes have been explained by taking 100.8 kWp (Block B), solar power plant located at Vishnu Institute of Technology, Bhimavaram (16.544893, 81.521240).KeywordsSolar Thermal TechnologySolar PV TechnologyDC converterMaximum power Point TrackingLightning arrestors