Study of solar irradiance and performance analysis of submerged monocrystalline and polycrystalline solar cells

Abstract

AbstractUnderwater photovoltaic (PV) systems supported with modern‐day technology can lead to possible solutions for the lack of long‐term power sources in marine electronics, navy corps, and many other remotely operated underwater power systems. Currently, most of these systems are powered by conventional batteries, which are bulky, costly, and require periodic maintenance and replacement. Harnessing the underwater Solar energy by using Solar PV cells is simple, reliable, and leads to tremendous advantageous as water itself provides cooling, cleaning, and avoid challenges due to land constraints. The present work encompasses an experimental study on Solar radiation in water and its changes with varying water conditions. Accordingly, the performance of monocrystalline and polycrystalline silicon solar cells with different submerged water conditions and water depths up to 20 cm has been studied. Most importantly, these studies have been carried out with different types of water conditions, consisting of salinity, bacteria, algae, and other water impurities. These investigation results manifest that the percentage decrease of maximum power output in monocrystalline and polycrystalline Solar cells is 65.85% and 62.55%, respectively, in the case of ocean water conditions, whereas in deionized (DI) water conditions, it is 63.06% and 60.72% up to 20 cm. Such results conclude that valuable amount of Solar energy is can be explored underwater. These experimental studies pave the way to explore further to utilize Solar PV cells efficiently in underwater conditions.