Current Solar Systems Research Articles

Solar System Implementation Performance at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM)

Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) has embarked on several solar energy initiatives to promote greener operations and sustainability. However, concerns exist regarding the actual performance of existing systems falling short of their potential. This project delves into the limitations of the current solar systems at USM, focusing on identifying and analyzing factors hindering optimal output. The research aims to understand the performance gaps affecting USM's solar systems comprehensively. By meticulously analyzing historical data, including solar irradiance, temperature, and system output, alongside a thorough study of existing infrastructure and maintenance practices, the project seeks to pinpoint specific bottlenecks. An in-depth interview with USM solar system specialists further assesses the systems' efficiency. This approach allows for a holistic evaluation of current practices and identification of key improvement areas. The ultimate goal is to establish concrete recommendations for optimizing USM's solar systems. These will encompass technical solutions, such as system upgrades, maintenance improvements, and operational adjustments, including data-driven monitoring and dynamic energy management strategies. Through this research, we strive to unlock the full potential of USM's solar infrastructure, enhancing its contribution to campus sustainability while providing valuable insights for wider solar energy implementation across Malaysia.

Development of a Mobile Application for Grid - Tied Solar Photovoltaic (PV) System Design for Residential Buildings

As digital technology is continually evolving and an increasing number of people from diverse backgrounds are spending more time on their mobile phones, building a mobile app for solar PV system design is beneficial for homeowners who wish to invest in solar energy as an alternative source of power for their appliances. The study aimed to develop a smartphone app for integrating solar photovoltaic systems in existing and new residential buildings. The software provides design on the rated capacity of the photovoltaic array, the size of the tie-inverter, the overall cost of the photovoltaic system, yearly savings, and return on investment. The software was created using solar radiance data, net-metering, and local government permitting requirements. The researcher collected 12 months of solar radiance data from five Dagupan City households before developing the app's design guidelines. The developed smartphone app was tested on residences with existing solar PV systems and compared to the real parameters of current solar PV systems. The results showed that the mobile app is a dependable tool for supporting residential clients in identifying suitable solar system sizes for their homes.

Techno-economic analysis of two-tank and packed-bed rock thermal energy storages for foil-based concentrating solar collector driven cogeneration plants

Concentrated solar power driven systems using thermal energy storage technology are an attractive solution for medium-scale dispatchable cogeneration plants. Recently, a novel concentrating solar collector system using a micro-structured polymer foil-based solar collector, with a potential of large cost reduction compared with current solar collector systems, was proposed. A techno-economic analysis of two-tank indirect storage, two-tank direct storage and packed-bed rock storage, respectively, for the foil-based solar field driven cogeneration plant is presented in this paper. The objectives are to identify the most suitable energy storage technology and to identify the optimal design for such system. Three different heat transfer fluids and two different rocks are considered in the analysis. The effects of solar field heat transfer fluid's operating and cost parameters on the selection of storage system are studied. The results suggest that the packed-bed rock (considering quartzite rock) thermocline storage with Therminol 55 as heat transfer fluid is the preferred option, attaining a minimum levelized cost of electricity and fresh water of 0.103 €/kWhe and 0.995 €/m3, respectively, for Antofagasta, Chile. The levelized costs of electricity and water are about 11.2% and 11.9% lower, respectively, compared to those of the conventional two-tank indirect storage based plant.

Solar Energy Production in India and Commonly Used Technologies—An Overview

This review uses a more holistic approach to provide comprehensive information and up-to-date knowledge on solar energy development in India and scientific and technological advancement. This review describes the types of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, existing solar technologies, and the structure of PV systems. Substantial emphasis has been given to understanding the potential impacts of COVID-19 on the solar energy installed capacity. In addition, we evaluated the prospects of solar energy and the revival of growth in solar energy installation post-COVID-19. Further, we described the challenges caused by transitions and cloud enhancement on smaller and larger PV systems on the solar power amended grid-system. While the review is focused on evaluating the solar energy growth in India, we used a broader approach to compare the existing solar technologies available across the world. The need for recycling waste from solar energy systems has been emphasized. Improved PV cell efficiencies and trends in cost reductions have been provided to understand the overall growth of solar-based energy production. Further, to understand the existing technologies used in PV cell production, we have reviewed monocrystalline and polycrystalline cell structures and their limitations. In terms of solar energy production and the application of various solar technologies, we have used the latest available literature to cover stand-alone PV and on-grid PV systems. More than 5000 trillion kWh/year solar energy incidents over India are estimated, with most parts receiving 4–7 kWh/m2. Currently, energy consumption in India is about 1.13 trillion kWh/year, and production is about 1.38 trillion kWh/year, which indicates production capacities are slightly higher than actual demand. Out of a total of 100 GW of installed renewable energy capacity, the existing solar capacity in India is about 40 GW. Over the past ten years, the solar energy production capacity has increased by over 24,000%. By 2030, the total renewable energy capacity is expected to be 450 GW, and solar energy is likely to play a crucial role (over 60%). In the wake of the increased emphasis on solar energy and the substantial impacts of COVID-19 on solar energy installations, this review provides the most updated and comprehensive information on the current solar energy systems, available technologies, growth potential, prospect of solar energy, and need for growth in the solar waste recycling industry. We expect the analysis and evaluation of technologies provided here will add to the existing literature to benefit stakeholders, scientists, and policymakers.

Modern manufacturing technology for modular photovoltaic panels: State-of-the-art and future trends

The technological advancement of the recent years has triggered a significant increase in the global energy consumption. Within this frame, the fossil fuels still account for most of the energy consumption as the renewable energy systems often lack reliability and predictability in terms of total energy supply. These shortcomings may be overcome if various design and manufacturing process optimization methods are applied so as to gain more benefits from the current solar power systems. A modern modular photovoltaic (PV) panel is an assembly of photovoltaic cells mounted in an adaptable framework for quick installation. The photo-voltaic cells use sunlight as source of energy and generate current electricity, which can be harvested directly or through an existing grid. A collection of PV modules can be arranged in any desirable manner to form a PV panel. Also, the implementation of such modern modular systems brings numerous advantages, including the reduction of power transmission cost and the minimization of the global warming problems. This work presents the latest findings related to the manufacturing technology and the equipment train used in the production of modern photovoltaic systems.

Life-cycle cost optimization of a solar combisystem for residential buildings in Nepal

ABSTRACT Current solar thermal systems used in Nepal are mostly for domestic hot water heating. Meanwhile, there is a growing need for space heating. A solar heating system can be configured to provide heat for both space heating and domestic hot water, leading to a solar combisystem. Research on residential solar combisystems in the Nepalean context barely exists in literature. This paper intends to propose, model and optimize a solar combisystem for typical single-family houses in Nepal. The optimization problem is formulated to have life-cycle cost as the objective function and a total of 11 variables, which are related to the sizing of combisystem components and the insulation thickness of building envelope. The number of hours not satisfying the thermostat heating set point is treated as the constraint. TRNSYS is used for modeling the solar combisystem. Particle Swarm optimization and the Hooke-Jeeves algorithm implemented in GenOpt are sequentially applied to solve the optimization problem. The results show that the optimization is effective to reduce the life-cycle cost by 66% for the Terai region and 77% for the Hilli region. The findings have demonstrated the importance of building envelope insulation to spread the use of solar combisystems in Nepal.

Seawater Desalination by Interfacial Solar Vapor Generation Method Using Plasmonic Heating Nanocomposites.

With the ever-growing demand in fresh water supply, great efforts have been devoted to developing sustainable systems which could generate fresh water continuously. Solar vapor generation is one of the promising strategies which comprise an unlimited energy source and efficient solar-to-heat generators for overcoming fresh water scarcity. However, current solar vapor generation systems suffer either from inefficient utilization of solar energy or an expensive fabrication process. In this paper, we introduced a nano-plasmonic approach, i.e., a floatable nanocompoiste where copper sulfide nanorods (Cu2-xS NRs) are embedded in a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) matrix, for solar-to-vapor generation. A high solar vapor generation efficiency of ~87% and water evaporation rate of 1.270 kg m−2 h−1 were achieved under simulated solar irradiation of 1 sun. With the illumination of natural daylight, seawater was purified using Cu2-xS NRs-PVA gel, with high purity, as distilled drinking water. The plasmonic nanocomposites demonstrated here are easy to fabricate and highly efficient for solar vapor generation, illustrating a potential solution for future seawater desalination.

Investigating the performance of a novel solar lighting/heating system using spectrum-sensitive nanofluids

Solar lighting is considered as a promising technique, which has huge potential in conserving energy and relaxing the residents. However, current solar lighting systems used a filter to allow only visible light to enter buildings, releasing all the other energy contained in the long wave of the solar into the surrounding air. Such practice leaded to low efficiency of solar energy utilization and high costs. In this paper, a solar lighting/heating system was developed which used a hollow lens filled with ATO nanofluid to separate the long wave and short wave of solar energy. A series of tests were conducted to explore the performance of system. Results indicated that under the test condition of Case 1 (0.025%/0.0001% ATO/Graphite nanofluid, 100 L/h flow rate), the light transmission efficiency was 19.5% which was comparable to that of current solar lighting systems, and the heat absorption efficiency was 25.35%. The heat energy collected by the such a system from June to August (three months) in the city of Harbin was about 466.4 MJ in per square meter of collection area. The volume concentration of nanofluids had great influence on both the light transmission efficiency and the heat absorption efficiency. The flow rate had little influence on the light transmission efficiency, but had great influence on the heat absorption efficiency of the system.

Nanoparticles enabled pump-free direct absorption solar collectors

Developing renewable energy technologies, especially solar energy-based, is of great importance to secure our energy future. Current solar thermal systems, however, have relatively low utilization efficiencies, limited not only by their low solar energy capture efficiency but also the auxiliary pumping power to circulate the working fluid. Here an innovative nanoparticle enabled pump-free direct absorption solar collector concept is presented, which combines the advantages of volumetric solar harvesting and oscillating heat pipes. Two different flow modes have been observed when the concentration of nanofluid is different. There is an optimum filling ratio when the thermal resistance reaches the minimum. Validation experiments show that the proposed concept can efficiently harvest solar energy and spontaneously transfer the heat into targeted areas, providing a novel approach for efficient solar energy utilization.

Evaluation of Multilayer Thin Film Coatings for Solar Thermal Applications

The multilayer thin film coatings are one of the proven technologies for improvement in solar thermal and optical applications. In current solar thermal and optical systems, multilayer thin film coatings find application in many functions such as photovoltaics, heat exchangers, filters, sensor technologies, laser windows, mirrors, reflectors and optics for digital projections. The solar absorptance and thermal emittance of the multilayer thin film coatings are one of the leading factors for its applicability in said areas. The processing conditions, morphology and surface finish influence the solar absorptance and thermal emittance behavior of multilayer thin film coating. Therefore, emphasis has given in this paper to deposit multilayer thin film coatings with an increased solar absorptance and decreased thermal emittance to improve its applicability in solar thermal applications. Multilayer thin film coatings (Al2O3/Ni/W–Al2O3/W) were deposited using DC/RF magnetron sputtering on the stainless steel substrate to improve its applicability in solar thermal receiver tube for power generation. The performance of this multilayer thin film was investigated by measuring the absorptance and emittance using 410 Solar and ET 100 in the solar spectrum region at a variable incident angle from 20° to 60°. The effect of optical properties, microstructure and morphology of the multilayer thin film coatings was also investigated. The maximum absorptance 0.92 and minimum emittance < 0.1 were observed in deposited multilayer thin film coating with the combination of Tungsten, Al2O3 and Nickel, respectively. The observed values indicate the practical applicability of the multilayer coatings in medium-to-high-temperature range of solar thermal receiver tubes.

A High-Performance Self-Regenerating Solar Evaporator for Continuous Water Desalination.

Emerging solar desalination by interfacial evaporation shows great potential in response to global water scarcity because of its high solar-to-vapor efficiency, low environmental impact, and off-grid capability. However, solute accumulation at the heating interface has severely impacted the performance and long-term stability of current solar evaporation systems. Here, a self-regenerating solar evaporator featuring excellent antifouling properties using a rationally designed artificial channel-array in a natural wood substrate is reported. Upon solar evaporation, salt concentration gradients are formed between the millimeter-sized drilled channels (with a low salt concentration) and the microsized natural wood channels (with a high salt concentration) due to their different hydraulic conductivities. The concentration gradients allow spontaneous interchannel salt exchange through the 1-2 µm pits, leading to the dilution of salt in the microsized wood channels. The drilled channels with high hydraulic conductivities thus function as salt-rejection pathways, which can rapidly exchange the salt with the bulk solution, enabling the real-time self-regeneration of the evaporator. Compared to other salt-rejection designs, the solar evaporator exhibits the highest efficiency (≈75%) in a highly concentrated salt solution (20 wt% NaCl) under 1 sun irradiation, as well as long-term stability (over 100 h of continuous operation).

Plasmonic Graphene Polyurethane Nanocomposites for Efficient Solar Water Desalination

Solar energy is the cleanest and most abundant renewable natural resource available. Materials for solar photothermal energy conversion are highly sought after for their cost savings, clean environment, and broad utility in providing water heating and/or steam for many applications including domestic water heating and solar-driven desalination. Water desalination via solar steam generation is considered one of the most important technologies to address the increasing pressing global water scarcity. The current solar thermal systems rely on the use of copper or aluminum for absorbers which have limited utility because of their inflexibility for tailored applications, high cost, and limited availability. These bulk metals are not very efficient in absorbing the solar spectrum. Therefore, the current solar thermal desalination devices have low efficiency and low water productivity due to the ineffectiveness of solar collectors to convert most of the sun energy into heat. Herein, we report the development of ...

Energy production and economic growth in Taiwan: Challenges and solutions

ABSTRACTTaiwan is an island in East Asia that strongly depends on imported fossil fuels. To reduce emissions and pollutants, there is interest in wind and solar energy. The current solar energy systems convert solar energy into electricity with high capital cost because of their low efficiency and high operational costs. This paper presents the position of renewable energy methods in Taiwan and the benefits of its expansion. This research suggests that the use of Photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) collectors and wind turbines can provide appropriate solutions for electricity production due to the benefits of the long duration of insolation of solar collectors and the energy density of wind turbines. However, there are several challenges and problems that must be solved (land conditions and geographical positions are not appropriate for PV/T installation and wind energy system, respectively). Finally, a series of suggestions is presented to solve the economic problems associated with wind and solar energy systems.

Nanofluid Types, Their Synthesis, Properties and Incorporation in Direct Solar Thermal Collectors: A Review.

The global demand for energy is increasing and the detrimental consequences of rising greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and environmental degradation present major challenges. Solar energy offers a clean and viable renewable energy source with the potential to alleviate the detrimental consequences normally associated with fossil fuel-based energy generation. However, there are two inherent problems associated with conventional solar thermal energy conversion systems. The first involves low thermal conductivity values of heat transfer fluids, and the second involves the poor optical properties of many absorbers and their coating. Hence, there is an imperative need to improve both thermal and optical properties of current solar conversion systems. Direct solar thermal absorption collectors incorporating a nanofluid offers the opportunity to achieve significant improvements in both optical and thermal performance. Since nanofluids offer much greater heat absorbing and heat transfer properties compared to traditional working fluids. The review summarizes current research in this innovative field. It discusses direct solar absorber collectors and methods for improving their performance. This is followed by a discussion of the various types of nanofluids available and the synthesis techniques used to manufacture them. In closing, a brief discussion of nanofluid property modelling is also presented.

The Effect of Inverter Failures on the Return on Investment of Solar Photovoltaic Systems

Return on investment (ROI) analyses of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems used for residential usage have typically shown that at least 10 to 12 years is needed to break even, with this amount varying based on tax credits and reliability. This paper discusses the challenges with the reliability of current solar photovoltaic systems and the key reliability bottlenecks, with a focus on the ROI. The problem stems primarily from reliability issues of currently available power electronics hardware. This paper’s analysis of failure data shows that the short warranties and reliability concerns associated with solar PV inverters reduce the long-term ROI of residential solar PV systems by up to 10%. This paper, therefore, provides key insights for accurate ROI calculations for solar PV investments. Furthermore, methods to improve the reliability of PV inverters, such as selection of capacitors, inverter topology, and incorporating wide-bandgap semiconductor devices, are presented.

Solar LED Intelligent Lighting Systems Based on Internet of Things and New Energy Storage System

Recently, solar LED lighting systems are widely used because of their energy-saving and environment friendly characteristics. But there are also some key problems in current solar LED lighting systems, such as follows: First, the lifetime of lead-acid battery is too short so that the whole system lose efficacy soon; Second, current solar LED lighting systems usually are isolated systems, so its controllability is worse. This paper propose a new solar LED intelligent lighting systems based on Internet of Things and Supercapacitor ,which can tackle these two problems better, so the solar LED intelligent lighting systems will advance applications of solar LED lighting systems.

Modeling and Simulation of Solar Irradiance and Daylight Duration for a High-Power-Output Solar Module System

Solar energy is the largest available renewable energy for enhancing the endurance of a solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). However, harnessing solar energy is a great challenge because the power output efficiency of solar module systems is only 15% to 30%. A solar-powered UAV has the potential to outperform a battery-powered UAV, particularly in tasks involving a pseudo satellite that requires long operating hours. Atmospheric conditions and geographical location are the main causes of the poor performance of solar modules. Despite the improvements in solar cell efficiency over the years, solar module systems can still barely convert half of the sun’s power into electricity. This limitation hinders the use of current solar module systems for harvesting solar energy. Recent studies have focused not only on the type of solar cells but also on the positioning system. However, understanding and research on the solar irradiance intensity, as well as on the effect of daylight duration on the power output, remain lacking. A comprehensive model was developed to address this gap and investigate how the movement of the sun movement affects the performance of solar module systems. This simulation model found that daylight duration is more important than available solar irradiance. Higher solar irradiance and daylight duration corresponds to a higher power output of the solar module system. Daylight duration also depends on latitude where higher latitudes lead to longer daylight duration. On the other hand, longitudinal coordinates and elevation have minor effects on the estimation of daylight duration. Therefore, the northern hemisphere has more advantages than southern hemisphere during summer and vice versa.

Potential for rooftop photovoltaics in Tokyo to replace nuclear capacity

In 2010, nuclear power accounted for 27% of electricity production in Japan. The March 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power station resulted in the closure of all of Japan’s nuclear power plants and it remains an open question as to how many will reopen. Even before the loss of nuclear capacity, there were efforts in Japan to foster the use of renewable energy, including large scale solar power. Nuclear power plants in Japan provided more than just base-load by storing energy in large scale pumped hydroelectric storage systems, which was then released to provide some peaking capacity. If this storage were instead coupled to current generation rooftop solar systems in Tokyo, the combined system could help to meet peak requirements while at the same time providing ∼26.5% of the electricity Tokyo used to get from nuclear output, and do so 91% of the time. Data from a study of rooftop space and a 34 yr data set of average daily irradiance in the Tokyo metropolitan area were used. Using pumped hydroelectric storage with 5.6 times this rooftop area could completely provide for TEPCO’s nuclear capacity.

Comparative Optimization on the Focusing Methods of Solar-Electric Dish Stirling System

Nowadays, the high-speed economic development has caused significant consumption of energy. While the circumstance is getting severer, solar energy is taken as a kind of clean, environmental friendly resource with infinite storage that has aroused a wide public concern. Photovoltaic and solar thermal are two main categories of solar applications. Because of its high conversion efficiency, low emission and flexible installation, dish Stirling solar power technology is more preferable to be used among the solar thermal area. From the view of practical engineering application, this paper illustrates multiple focusing methods of the current dish Stirling solar power systems in detail, and the comparison of these methods are given to analyze their advantages, disadvantages and their application scenarios. It can be used for the future development of dish Stirling solar power technology and applied as a reference for large dish solar thermal power plants’ installations and tests.

A feasibility study on solar-wall systems for domestic heating – An affordable solution for fuel poverty

A Solar Wall Heating (SWH) system was developed to provide low cost space heating in traditional solid stone-walled tenement buildings in Scotland. The SWH system uses the internal solid walls to store the solar heat collected during the day and heat the bedrooms during the night.A physical laboratory model with attached solar hot water system and a computational model of it were developed to investigate the dynamic performance of the system in use and test the cost benefits of iterations of its modes of use. The temperatures throughout the wall structure were measured under the variant solar input of a 24-h cycle. An unsteady state CFD model was developed and validated using the measured data and setup to test a number of key variables of the solar wall heating system in use. These included optimisation control strategies and maximisation strategies for the collection and storage of solar heat under various conditions. This paper presents the modelled results of the solar thermal storage and optimisation system and strategies for internal solid stone walls in a typical Scottish tenement flat in the Scottish climate.In addition the study analysed the solar availability, heating demand and domestic water supply of two typical dwellings based on two reliable methods: (a) a purpose built dynamic thermal model and (b) data collected in previous studies.The study demonstrated that the solar collection of current solar hot water systems can be improved upon so that, even in Scotland, more solar power can be harvested to contribute not only to domestic hot water, but also domestic space heating, particularly in buildings occupied over 24h with heavy thermal mass. The cost analysis of the system in use suggested a 16year payback period for such a system for a tenement flat.