TY - GEN
T1 - Designing solar arrays to account for reduced performance from self-shading
AU - Galtieri, Jason
AU - Krein, Philip T.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 IEEE.
PY - 2015/3/20
Y1 - 2015/3/20
N2 - The goal of any solar array is to maximize energy production by increasing irradiance absorption and mitigating losses. In large-scale arrays, parallel rows of solar panels can shade adjacent rows, reducing production owing to effects known as self-shading and diffuse masking. For this work, the influence of row spacing and panel tilt angle on trade-offs between shading impact and irradiance capture is evaluated. A model that takes into account sub-module level mismatch is developed and can be applied to a wide range of geographic regions. Additionally, a method for simulating large arrays, which utilizes a lookup table of IV curves, is proposed. The table circumvents the tedious process of generating curves in real-time and allows fast power output calculations. With this method, simulation time is drastically reduced while introducing estimation error of 0.25%, as compared to full numerical approaches.
AB - The goal of any solar array is to maximize energy production by increasing irradiance absorption and mitigating losses. In large-scale arrays, parallel rows of solar panels can shade adjacent rows, reducing production owing to effects known as self-shading and diffuse masking. For this work, the influence of row spacing and panel tilt angle on trade-offs between shading impact and irradiance capture is evaluated. A model that takes into account sub-module level mismatch is developed and can be applied to a wide range of geographic regions. Additionally, a method for simulating large arrays, which utilizes a lookup table of IV curves, is proposed. The table circumvents the tedious process of generating curves in real-time and allows fast power output calculations. With this method, simulation time is drastically reduced while introducing estimation error of 0.25%, as compared to full numerical approaches.
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U2 - 10.1109/PECI.2015.7064935
DO - 10.1109/PECI.2015.7064935
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84928041032
T3 - 2015 IEEE Power and Energy Conference at Illinois, PECI 2015
BT - 2015 IEEE Power and Energy Conference at Illinois, PECI 2015
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 2015 IEEE Power and Energy Conference at Illinois, PECI 2015
Y2 - 20 February 2015 through 21 February 2015
ER -