Underwater Characterization and Monitoring of Amorphous and Monocrystalline Solar Cells in Diverse Water Settings

Abstract

Most of Solar Photovoltaic (PV) cells are limited to space, dryland and rooftop applications leading to huge scope in exploring the performance of PV cells in an underwater environment. Such underwater Solar energy has tremendous potential to be used in many commercial and defense applications like sensors, underwater vehicles, autonomous power systems, etc. Nowadays, another major constraint in Solar PV systems is the cooling and cleaning of PV cells, which can also be overcome by placing PV cells underwater. Although the Solar spectrum itself changes underwater and becomes narrower with increasing the water depth, yet one of the possible solutions is using a suitable type of Solar cells for maximum power conversion underwater. In this work, an experimental setup has been designed and implemented to create an underwater environment. Further, Solar cells have been encapsulated with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and diverse characterizations have been accomplished to sense the behavior of amorphous and monocrystalline cells with different water types. This study gives a better understanding to monitor the performance characteristics of Solar PV cells underwater with various factors such as the water depth, type of Solar cell, salinity, total dissolved salts and other impurities which will immensely affect the performance of Solar cells underwater.