Solar Energy Generation System Research Articles

Sustainable Practices Improving the University Campus: Feasibility of A Photovoltaic System

This article aimed to discuss the principles of sustainability applied to the built environment, highlighting the importance of universities as replicators of these practices. To respond to a demand from the campus for more security in the energy supply, the work proposes the implementation of a solar photovoltaic energy system. For this, it carried out an economic viability analysis through bibliographic review activities, characterization of the study area, dimensioning of photovoltaic systems, budgets, cost analysis and payback calculation. The research evaluated the system’s implementation considering two energy demands, for the entire campus and for a smaller building. It was found that the CSL-UFSJ consumes, on average, 27,300.38 kWh, at a cost of US$ 2,736. Thus, an annual savings of US$ 32,833 is calculated. The cost estimate analyzes showed a value of US$ 139,784 for the implementation of the system. The return on investment time was calculated for 4.3 and 4.9 years considering simple and discounted Payback respectively.It is estimated that the consumption of the DECEB building is 13,187.1 kWh with a cost of US$ 1,322 per month, which results in an annual savings of US$ 15,860. The cost estimate analyzes showed a value of US$ 40.601 for the implementation of the system and values of 4.3 and 4.9 years were obtained as return on investment time considering the calculations for simple and discounted Payback, respectively. The research demonstrates that the implementation of the photovoltaic solar energy generation system is feasible for both cases analyzed.

FEM analysis of novel Fresnel sheet solar concentrating system for TEG

The expensive manufacturing process and low efficiency at the high working temperature of photovoltaic cells necessitate the need for an alternate solar energy generation system. In this study, a concentrated solar thermal system that works on the principle of the Seebeck effect has been selected for electical energy conversion. Standard Thermal Electric Generator (TEG) of material Bismuth Telluride is considered for harvesting energy from concentrated solar irradiance. In this research work, a Fresnel sheet concentrator has been used as the concentrating medium due to its low weight and easy installation. The solar simulator experiment is carried out on the Bismuth Telluride TEG module (type TEP1-12656-0.6) to find out its output characteristics curve with respect to irradiance. In this connection, high temperature is maintained at the top of the TEG by using fresnel concentrator and low temperature is maintained at the bottom by utilising the Flow Channel concept. Analysis of the flow channel is done in detail using ANSYS version 15. Results are discussed. Based on this result, the water flow rate has been optimised and it is found that the high temperature at the top of the TEG is not constant due to solar irradient uncertainity. A complete cost analysis is performed and the payback period of the proposed model is found out to be considerably less compared to the conventional solar panel system. Hence, in this manner, the most abundant renewable energy like solar energy is made use efficiently as well as economically, without causing any harm to the environmental well-being.

A Novel Method for Flexible Solar Energy Generation System Fault Detection Using Optimally Structured Convolution Neural Networks

A Novel Method for Flexible Solar Energy Generation System Fault Detection Using Optimally Structured Convolution Neural Networks

Solar Energy Conversion Systems Optimization using Novel Jellyfish based Maximum Power Tracking Strategy

Solar energy generation using photovoltaic arrays depends on the proper design of a conversion stage that adapts the power to the load requirements. The operation of photovoltaic systems in isolated outdoor environment results in the exposure to varying climatic conditions and occurrence of faults and other undesired operating disturbances. In this work, a novel computational intelligence technique is used in order to track the optimal operating point of the solar energy generation system in the presence of normal and disturbed operating conditions. The novel Jellyfish optimization technique is used to modify the voltage of the photovoltaic array using a boost DC-DC converter. Experimental results of the implemented algorithm in a DSP microcontroller show the good performance of the optimization algorithm in both normal and disturbed operating conditions.

Ecent Advancement on Solar Photovoltaic Energy Generation System Special Reference to Shading Condition- A Review

Design of a Solar PVEnergy Generation to harness the optimum solar energy has been a big challenge among the researcher. It is quite essential to review the latest all the availabletechnique, their advantages and disadvantages, prior to designinga new Solar PV Energy Generation system. In present paper a detail discussion is presented on various maximum power points tracking algorithms employed on Photovoltaic Energy generation system under shading condition. We have covered the various algorithms, PV modelling techniques, PV array configuration, monitoring system etc. up to till date. Impact of shading effect is reported massive on energy supply capacity. Hence, in this paper we have investigated and discussed the various type of PV module at different type of shading level. This paper provides a handy reference to undertake a mass research works on PV system in near future under shading condition

Assessing the potential for greater solar development in West Texas, USA

As population and economies continue to grow on a global scale, so too does the demand for energy. To improve reliability and independence of energy supplies, the U.S. and many other countries are seeking internally-sourced renewable energy; solar is one such renewable-energy source that meets these criteria. However, all energy sources exert some environmental impacts. In the case of solar, direct impacts stem mostly from alteration of land needed to host infrastructure. Understanding the environmental upside and downside potential of solar energy systems allows a more comprehensive, side-by-side comparison with different energy sources. In this article, we focus on the solar energy potential of West Texas, USA, a large arid to semi-arid region with a rural population and favorable climatic conditions. Texas is an interesting and important region to study given its unregulated and independent grid operation and the additional (and substantial) sources of regionally produced energy. Herein, we assess the geographic and environmental attributes, constraints to (e.g., incoming solar radiation, slope, habitats, ecoregion, water availability, etc.), and the potential environmental impacts on land resources from utility-scale installations of different types of solar energy generation systems. Our assessment points to the balance needed to expand solar energy to gain flexibility in energy sourcing on the one hand, while carefully considering future locations and technology to avoid regional impacts to land and environmental resources.

Simulation-based design of solar photovoltaic energy generation system for manufacturing support

Having in mind that energy is being regarded as indispensable to the socio-economic progress of developing and developed nations, where the main objective implies replacement and reduction of a major portion of the fossil fuels utilization, implementation of renewable energy technologies where natural phenomena are transformed into beneficial types of energy are becoming more and more appreciated and needed. Among renewable energy resources we know today, solar energy is the most beneficial, relatively limitless, effective, and dependable. Having this in mind, the aim of this paper is primarily to help key decision-makers understand the process when considering integration of solar energy to meet their own manufacturing energy needs, or how it is called today, to become ?prosumers?. Given the aforementioned, this paper provides an overview of detailed simulation methodology for photovoltaic system sizing and design for metal-forming manufacturing system energy needs. The simulation is based on National Renewable Energy Laboratory photovoltaic performance model which combines module and inverter sub-models with supplementary code to calculate a photovoltaic power system?s hourly AC output is given a weather file and data describing the physical characteristics of the module, inverter, and array. Furthermore, the characteristic losses are calculated and presented for a fixed array photovoltaic system and illustratively given in the form of a Sankey diagram. A variety of graphical data representations are available while the most important ones are given in the study. Lastly, future research topics were filtered and briefly summarized.

Wind Power Plant Modelling in Wasp-Iv Through Ssa

This paper deals with the simulation results obtained with regard to the restricted load demand in the state of Tamil Nadu for the year 2015. There are certain approaches in long term benefits of wind power plant modelling in WASP-IV. They all have some kind of approximations such as, load modification approach and supply-side approach. In Supply-Side Approach, Wind Power Plant (WPP) is meant to have both unreliable thermal plant capacity and the hydro capacity of Run-of-River (RoR), to make this approach more effective. As Capacity Factor (CF) is estimated as 18.6% for WPP, the FOR is estimated to be 81.4%. For solar energy generation system too, such a process is applied whereby the average CF is considered to be 40% while the FOR is assumed to be 60%. In the representation of WPP as RoR hydro plant, the constraint in the form of inflow energy.

Solar PV Energy Generation System Interfaced to Three Phase Grid With Improved Power Quality

This paper deals with a multipurpose distributed sparse (DS) control approach for a single stage solar photovoltaic (PV) energy generation system (SPEGS). This SPEGS is interfaced here to the three phase grid at varying solar irradiance and compensating the nonlinear load tied at point of common interconnection. The SPEGS performs multitasks. It feeds the generated solar PV power to the local three phase grid. It reduces the harmonics of loads and furnished balanced currents of local three-phase grid. The SPEGS uses a solar PV array, a voltage source converter (VSC), a nonlinear load, a three phase grid, and a dc-link capacitance. In case, when the solar irradiance is not available, the proposed system works as distribution static compensator by utilizing same VSC. For extracting maximum power from the PV source, the traditional perturb and observe (P&O) scheme is utilized here. The tracking performance and efficiency of P&O technique are also examined here at rapid changing climatic conditions to show the behavior of the P&O scheme. The DS control approach is capable to estimate required fundamental component to find out reference grid currents. The proposed control approach is validated on a developed prototype in the laboratory.

Performance study of coal-fired power generation system combined with renewable solar energy source based on thermodynamic analysis

Abstract China’s coal resources are abundant, so the total amount of carbon emissions is large. In order to achieve ecologically sustainable development, clean energy such as solar energy is used to generate electricity. This study briefly introduced the composition and working process of solar energy and coal-fired power generation system, analyzed its working principle with thermodynamics, established the corresponding thermodynamic model to simulate and then analyzed the change of the photoelectric conversion efficiency and the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) with the change of collector area under different loads of solar energy and coal-fired power generation system. The results showed that the photoelectric conversion efficiency increased first and then decreased with the increase of the collector area under different loads, and the higher the load was, the higher the photoelectric conversion efficiency would be; the LCOE decreased first and then increased with the increase of the collector area under different loads, and the higher the load was, the lower the LCOE would be.

Performance evaluation of maximum light detection solar tracking system in the tropics

In this paper, a performance analysis of a photovoltaic (PV) tracking system is conducted, to evaluate its performance based on field data measurement. A dual-axis tracker with smart algorithms called maximum light detection (MLD) applied in the solar energy generation system is analyzed. In a tropical country that having a massive cloud cover throughout the year, the sky condition is categorized as sunny, intermittent and gloomy. The comparative results show that the system with MLD tracker improved the energy generation significantly all sky conditions.

Smart Grid Privacy Protection Using Solar Energy and Rechargeable Battery

In smart grid, smart meter (SM) samples users’ energy consumption at high frequency. By analyzing the fine-grained smart metering data, users’ behavior patterns can be recognized thus threatening consumers’ privacy. In this paper, the protection of SM privacy is studied in the presence of solar energy generation system and a rechargeable battery (RB). Solar energy plays the role of an alternative electricity provider for users except power grid. RB can be used to partially hide the real appliance consumption while cut down the electricity bills. A “privacy safe-cost friendly optimal model” is developed aimed at minimizing the weighted sum of privacy leakage and financial cost, with constraints of battery physical conditions and solar radiation amount. In order to solve the optimal problem, we formulate a novel inner-outer optimal algorithm. Simulations demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed algorithm using real data. The impact of the battery capacity and the amount of solar energy on the privacy protection is also studied.

Fisheye lens design for sun tracking cameras and photovoltaic energy systems

Solar panels are gaining global popularity for electrical energy generation. However, efficiency of static solar panels can vary during the day. Solar panels can have increased energy output if they are actively oriented to capture the most amount of sunlight as the sun moves in the sky. In order to achieve this active orientation, sun’s angular position needs to be estimated. Sun’s position in the sky and zenith angle can be determined by automatic analysis of images captured by a whole sky camera. As the purpose of a whole sky, sun tracking camera is to accurately identify solar zenith angle, a special camera integrated with a fisheye lens with equidistant (f-theta) mapping can be designed. Due to the angular linearity of equidistant fisheye lenses, solar zenith angle can be directly calculated after the position of the sun in a whole sky image is detected with digital image processing algorithms. This paper presents the optical design of a compact, high-resolution equidistant fisheye lens with low deviation from the f-theta distortion profile. The lens can be integrated with a commercial image sensor array to form a low-cost whole sky camera for accurate sun tracking in solar energy generation systems.

Low-Voltage Ride-Through Control Strategy for a Grid-Connected Energy Storage System

This paper presents a low-voltage ride-through (LVRT) control strategy for grid-connected energy storage systems (ESSs). In the past, researchers have investigated the LVRT control strategies to apply them to wind power generation (WPG) and solar energy generation (SEG) systems. Regardless of the energy source, the main purpose of the LVRT control strategies is to inject reactive power into the grid depending on the grid-code regulations using the grid-side inverter; the proposed LVRT control strategy for grid-connected ESSs also has the same purpose. However, unlike the WPG and SEG systems having unidirectional power flow, grid-connected ESSs have a bidirectional power flow. Therefore, the charging condition of the grid-connected ESSs should be considered for the LVRT control strategy. The proposed LVRT control strategy for grid-connected ESSs determines the injection quantity of the active and reactive currents, and the strategy depends on the voltage drop ratio of the three-phase grid. Additionally, in this paper, we analyzed the variations of the point of common coupling (PCC) voltage depending on the phase of the reactive current during the charging and discharging conditions. The validity of the proposed LVRT control strategy is verified and the variations of the PCC voltage of the grid-connected ESS are analyzed by simulation and experimental results.

Design of solar photovoltaic energy generation system for off-grid applications

This paper refers to the design and control of a standalone solar-photovoltaic (PV) energy system using an isolated half bridge boost DC-DC converter. The adaptive methodology-based incremental conductance (INC) scheme is used with the proportional integral (PI) controller for maximum power point tracking (MPPT) control. A voltage controller and current regulator are designed for VSI using a cascade loop control to sustain the power quality at the consumer load side. The proposed system with its controllers is modelled in MATLAB and its results are assessed under varying solar radiations in addition to varying consumer loads.

DC grid connected energy flow control formed by three different solar panels, fuel cell and battery-backed hybrid energy generation system

DC grid connected energy flow control formed by three different solar panels, fuel cell and battery-backed hybrid energy generation system

Design of solar photovoltaic energy generation system for off-grid applications

This paper refers to the design and control of a standalone solar-photovoltaic (PV) energy system using an isolated half bridge boost DC-DC converter. The adaptive methodology-based incremental conductance (INC) scheme is used with the proportional integral (PI) controller for maximum power point tracking (MPPT) control. A voltage controller and current regulator are designed for VSI using a cascade loop control to sustain the power quality at the consumer load side. The proposed system with its controllers is modelled in MATLAB and its results are assessed under varying solar radiations in addition to varying consumer loads.

Investigation Efficiency and Microcontroller-Based Energy Flow Control for Wind-Solar-Fuel Cell Hybrid Energy Generation System with Battery Storage

In this proposal, microcontroller-based energy flow control was designed in order to effectively and efficiently enable the use of energy sources in a hybrid energy generation system including wind, solar, and hydrogen energy. It was assumed that the hybrid energy generation system is dynamic during the design of the microcontroller-based energy flow control. A wind–solar energy generation system was determined as the base load power plant. Depending on the demand, the battery group and fuel cell were activated effectively. If an energy surplus occurred, it was stored in battery groups and transformed into hydrogen energy via a hydrogen generator simultaneously. In addition to providing energy sustainability, a constant active status of the energy storage group was prevented and the physical life of the group was prolonged by means of the microcontroller-based control system. If consumer demand could not be met by the main energy sources including wind and solar energy, the battery groups and fuel cell were activated and provided the energy sustainability. After a certain level of charge was reached in the battery group, it was deactivated via the control system in order to prevent unnecessary use of energy. By means of the microcontroller-based control system, the usage of energy generated with the hybrid energy generation system was analysed according to its efficiency.

DC grid connected energy flow control formed by three different solar panels, fuel cell and battery-backed hybrid energy generation system

Hybrid energy generation systems help to increase system reliability and improve power quality. However, they come across some challenges in their widespread using area. These problems are intermittently varying renewable energy sources like solar radiation, high installation costs and limited lifetime of energy storage devices. Thus, there is a need to integrate these sources by means of a suitable power management strategy despite the fluctuations in source and load power. In this paper, an energy system comprising two energy sources, namely PV and fuel cells, is proposed. Each of the energy sources is controlled so as to deliver energy at optimum efficiency. The main aim is to give uninterrupted, efficient and economical energy to consumer. So Arduino microcontroller-based control is applied for energy flow control to DC voltage bus. Also, a complete description of the management system is presented.

Performance analysis of a solar photovoltaic hybrid system for electricity generation and simultaneous water disinfection of wild bacteria strains

A hybrid solar water disinfection and energy generation system for meeting the needs of safe drinking water and electricity was designed and tested in Alcalá de Henares (Spain) under summer climatic conditions to demonstrate the feasibility of the concept. Natural water sources with wild strains of Escherichia coli, total coliforms, Enterococcus spp. and Clostridium perfringens (including spores) were studied. Results showed that SOLWAT disinfection efficiency was higher than conventional PET bottles and that the water disinfection reactor located above the PV module did not affect the total energy output produced by the hybrid system in comparison to the single PV module, achieving the same power losses over the 6h of sun exposure in relation to their power at standard test conditions (STC).