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Quarterly published "Inventi Impact: Solar" publishes high quality unpublished as well as high impact pre-published research and reviews related to all the areas of solar energy research, development, application, measurement or policy.
*ecurrent work conducts a comparative study of the waterbed multistage solar still with stacked stages (MSS-SS) and the vapourbased MSS-SS. Various experimental test results obtained from the vapour-based MSS-SS are briefly discussed in comparison with the waterbed MSS-SS reported in the literature. Based on the experimental observations and tests, the stage tray requires no maintenance and upper stages can operate even when the lower stages are nonoperational. About 0.8–41.3% distillate yield dropped from the upper stages when lower stages were exposed to the atmosphere. *e upper stages increased their productivity by 7.1–15.4% when the lower stages were shut off completely. *e waterbed-based MSS-SS preserves and reuses thermal energy much better even during off sunshine hours than the vapour-based system. *e vapour-based MSS-SS is only productive during sunshine hours, and about 97-98% of the distillate is produced during daytime. Furthermore, the vapour based was able to produce 6.3 kg/day on average on the selected days....
Sun position and the optimum inclination of a solar panel to the sun vary over time throughout the day. A simple but accurate solar\nposition measurement system is essential for maximizing the output power from a solar panel in order to increase the panel\nefficiency while minimizing the system cost. Solar position can be measured either by a sensor (active/passive) or through the\nsun position monitoring algorithm. Sensor-based sun position measuring systems fail to measure the solar position in a cloudy\nor intermittent day, and they require precise installation and periodic calibrations. In contrast, the sun position algorithms use\nmathematical formula or astronomical data to obtain the station of the sun at a particular geographical location and time. A\nstandalone low-cost but high-precision dual-axis closed-loop sun-tracking system using the sun position algorithm was\nimplemented in an 8-bit microcontroller platform. The Astronomical Almanacâ??s (AA) algorithm was used for its simplicity,\nreliability, and fast computation capability of the solar position. Results revealed that incorporation of the sun position\nalgorithm into a solar tracking system helps in outperforming the fixed system and optical tracking system by 13.9% and 2.1%,\nrespectively. In summary, even for a small-scale solar tracking system, the algorithm-based closed-loop dual-axis tracking\nsystem can increase overall system efficiency....
After being adequately captured and concentrated, solar radiation can be conducted by optical fiber bundles/cables and directly used for illumination (lighting) or heating of confined spaces, or indirectly used by converting it in other forms of energy (e.g., for producing electricity). This article reports preliminary tests conducted on a 7-m-long optical fiber bundle/cable with an effective aperture circular area of 14 mm in diameter, specially designed and manufactured by a leading company to transmit up to 1000Wth of unfiltered concentrated sunlight. The cable was tested in the typical receiver position at the top of a solar concentration central tower. The main purpose was the experimental determination of the transmission efficiency of the cable in the function of the incidence angle using selected groups of heliostats belonging to the heliostat field. The testing methodology proved to be capable of evaluating the performance of the cable. The cable withstood the tests without revealing any type of damage. The results obtained showed that the transmissivity of the cable is higher than 50% when the incidence angle of the solar radiation is lower than 14.7, increasing sharply to circa 95% when the incidence angle is lower than 4.5....
Solar energy is a renewable type, clean, and inexhaustible which is sufficiently available on the Algerian territory. The energy\nreceived daily on a horizontal surface of 1m2 is in the order of 5 kWh over almost the whole Algerian territory; the duration of\nsunshine surpasses 2000 hours annually and can reach 3900 hours on the highlands and the Sahara. The importance of this\nwork is based on exploiting solar energy to produce electricity. This study is based on the experimental exploitation of solar\nenergy using solar treeâ??s prototype suggestion. This new model is focused to replace the leaf of a tree by the solar cell, starting by\nexamining the solar field and physical phenomenon related with it; the description of cell photovoltaic comes after; and finally,\nthe dimension of the solar system and the experimental studies are virtually released in the University of Mâ??sila. In this work, a\nprototype of new artificial solar tree is proposed experimentally by using material available in the local market: 25 solar panels,\nmetal support, electrical queues, regulator, and battery....
In this paper, a new solar activity index based on a novel disturbance extraction method, the spectral whitening method (SWM), is introduced to process the solar EUV data on the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Our research suggests that the spatial information derived by SWM can well reflect the location of disturbance extraction, which is consistent with the location of the solar active region. It indicates that the disturbance extraction is effective. From AIA 094 Å to AIA 335 Å, SWM results are strongly correlated with solar radio flux F107 and the sunspot number (SSN), especially at AIA 211 Å, where the correlation coefficient reaches the maximum, while at AIA 1600 Å and AIA 1700 Å there are no detectable correlations. The proposed new solar activity index, JP (AIA), has the following characteristics: (1) the new index can reflect the main variations of F107 and SSN, indicating that the index is valid; (2) the new index has higher temporal resolution, which is more conducive to the more detailed study of solar activities on short timescales; (3) the new index reveals that the solar atmosphere still has significant variability during solar minimum characterized by low F107 and SSN; (4) the new index can be used in conjunction with the new magnetospheric and ionospheric indices, which are also derived by SWM to deepen the understanding of the causal chain of space weather and promote the improvement of forecasting capabilities....
Recently, selective emitter (SE) technology has attracted renewed attention in the Si solar\ncell industry to achieve an improved conversion efficiency of passivated-emitter rear-contact (PERC)\ncells. In this study, we presented a novel technique for the SE formation by controlling the surface\nmorphology of Si wafers...................................
In this research, we have proposed a Sn-based perovskite solar cell using solar cell capacitance software. The main aim of this study is to develop an environment-friendly and highly efficient structure that can be used as an alternative to other toxic lead-based perovskite solar cells. This work performed a numerical analysis for the proposed (Al/ZnO/SnO2/CH3NH3SnI3/Ni) device structure. The absorber layer CH3NH3SnI3, buffer layer SnO2, and electron transport layer (ETL) ZnO, with aluminium as the front contact and nickel as the back contact, have been used in this simulation. Several analyses have been conducted for the proposed structure, such as the impact of the absorber layer thickness, acceptor density, defect density, series and shunt resistances, back contact work function, and operating temperature. The device simulation revealed that the optimum thickness of the absorber layer is 1.5 μm and 0.05 μm for the buffer layer. The proposed Sn-based perovskite structure has obtained a conversion efficiency of 28.19% along with FF of 84.63%, Jsc of 34.634 mA/cm2, and Voc of 0.961 V. This study shows the upcoming lead-free perovskite solar cell’s enormous potential....
Renewable energy generation and electric vehicles (EVs) have attracted much attention in\nthe past decade due to increasingly serious environmental problems as well as less and less fossil\nenergy reserves. Moreover, the forms of energy utilization are changing with the development of\ninformation technology and energy technology. The term ââ?¬Å?energy hubââ?¬Â has been introduced to\nrepresent an entity with the capability of energy production, conversion and storage. A residential\nquarter energy-hub-optimization model including a concentrating solar power (CSP) unit is proposed\nin this work, with solar energy and electricity as its inputs to supply thermal and electrical demands,\nand the operating objective is to minimize the involved operation costs. The optimization model\nis a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) problem. Demand side management (DSM) is next\nimplemented by modeling shiftable electrical loads such as EVs and washers, as well as flexible\nthermal loads such as hot water. Finally, the developed optimization model is solved with the\ncommercial CPLEX solver based on the YALMIP/MATLAB toolbox, and sample examples are\nprovided for demonstrating the features of the proposed method....
Solar collector technologies operate with better performance when the Sun beam direction\nis normal to the capturing surface, and for that to happen despite the relative movement of the Sun,\nsolar tracking systems are used, therefore, there are rules and standards that need minimum accuracy\nfor these tracking systems to be used in solar collectorsââ?¬â?¢ evaluation. Obtaining accuracy is not an\neasy job, hence in this document the design, construction and characterization of a sensor based on\na visual system that finds the relative azimuth error and height of the solar surface of interest, is\npresented. With these characteristics, the sensor can be used as a reference in control systems and\ntheir evaluation. The proposed sensor is based on a microcontroller with a real-time clock, inertial\nmeasurement sensors, geolocation and a vision sensor, that obtains the angle of incidence from the\nsunraysââ?¬â?¢ direction as well as the tilt and sensor position. The sensorââ?¬â?¢s characterization proved how\na measurement of a focus error or a Sun position can be made, with an accuracy of 0.0426ââ??¦ and an\nuncertainty of 0.986%, which can be modified to reach an accuracy under 0.01ââ??¦. The validation of\nthis sensor was determined showing the focus error on one of the best commercial solar tracking\nsystems, a Kipp & Zonen SOLYS 2. To conclude, the solar tracking sensor based on a vision system\nmeets the Sun detection requirements and components that meet the accuracy conditions to be used\nin solar tracking systems and their evaluation or, as a tracking and orientation tool, on photovoltaic\ninstallations and solar collectors....
The silicon solar cell with series-connected vertical junction is studied with\ndifferent lamella widths-the expression of the ac recombination velocity of\nthe excess minority carrier at the back surface is established. Spectroscopy\ntechnique reveals dominated impact of the lamella widths of the base....
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