• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.84-97
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• 2023

This study aimed to investigate the feasibility and potential applications of utilizing bifacial photovoltaic (PV) panels from an architectural perspective. It also aimed to establish a foundational dataset for installation and operational guidelines for bifacial PV panels through a comparative analysis of energy production performance with single PV panels. The research encompassed several key steps, including a comprehensive literature review, calculation of solar surface radiation values, development of datasets for bifacial and single PV energy production, and a performance comparison between both approaches. The results of the study show that bifacial PV panels exhibit optimized energy production capabilities within the range of 40 to 80 degrees, contingent upon the specific installation location. Consequently, it is recommended that the installation of bifacial PV panels in Korea should primarily focus on southwest-to-west orientation. Furthermore, it was concluded that bifacial PV panels could contribute an equivalent or even superior level of energy production compared to single PV panels, even if their performance exhibited a marginally lower efficiency of 2% to 5% with an 18% power generation efficiency.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.335-341
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• 2011

This paper presents an improved orientation strategy for energy-efficiency in photovoltaic (PV) panels. Conventionally, PV panels are tilted with the site's latitude angle or the difference between the latitude angle and the solar declination angle. A monthly-based orientation strategy has been proposed and analyzed in this study. The proposed strategy implies that the PV panels are tilted with the monthly-based angle that achieves the maximum incident radiation. Furthermore, the impact of using the proposed orientation strategy and three conventional strategies on the produced power and on the PV system design features has been investigated in detail. A Japanese city (Fukuoka) and an Egyptian city (Al-Kharijah) have been considered as locations for the PV power system installation. The results showed that the proposed strategy achieved an increase in the power produced from the PV power systems at the two different sites, and consequently the required solar cells area can be saved. Therefore, the cost of the PV power system components can be reduced including the solar cells area and the land area.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.19-32
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• 2021

Photovoltaic (PV) panels are generally treated as the most dependable components of PV systems; therefore, investigations are necessary to understand and emphasize the degradation of PV cells. In almost all specific deprivation models, humidity and temperature are the two major factors that are responsible for PV module degradation. However, even if the degradation mode of a PV module is determined, it is challenging to research them in practice. Long-term response experiments should thus be conducted to investigate the influences of the incidence, rates of change, and different degradation methods of PV modules on energy production; such models can help avoid lengthy experiments to investigate the degradation of PV panels under actual working conditions. From the review, it was found that the degradation rate of PV modules in climates where the annual average ambient temperature remained low was -1.05% to -1.16% per year, and the degree of deterioration of PV modules in climates with high average annual ambient temperatures was -1.35% to -1.46% per year; however, PV manufacturers currently claim degradation rates of up to -0.5% per year.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.1894-1903
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• 2016

In general, electrolytic capacitors are used to reduce power pulsations on PV-panels. However, this can reduce the reliability of the PV AC-module system, because electrolytic capacitors have a shorter lifetime than PV-panels. In addition, PV-panels generate irregular power and inject it into the grid because the output power of a PV-panel depends on the surrounding conditions such as irradiation and temperature. To solve these problems, a grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) AC-module with active power decoupling and energy storage is proposed. A parallel bi-directional converter is connected to the AC module to reduce the output power pulsations of PV-panels. Thus, the electrolytic capacitor can be replaced with a film capacitor. In addition, the irregular output power due to the surrounding conditions can be regulated by using a parallel energy storage circuit. To maintain the discontinuous conduction mode at low irradiation, the frequency control method is adopted. The design method of the proposed converter and the operation principles are introduced. An experimental prototype rated at 125W was built to verify the performance of the proposed converter.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.30-34
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• 2017

The building integrated photovoltaic system (BIPV) attracts attention with regard to the future of the photovoltaic (PV) industry. It is because one of the promising national and civilian projects in the country. Since land area is limited, there is considerable interest in BIPV systems with a variety of angles and shapes of PV panels. It is therefore expected to be one of the major fields for the PV industry in the future. Since the irradiation is different from each installation angle, the output can be predicted by the angles. This is critical for a PV system to be operated at maximum power and use an efficient design. The development characteristics of tilted angles based on data results obtained via long-term monitoring need to be analyzed. The ratio of the theoretically available and actual outputs is compared with the installation angles of each PV module to provide a suitable PV system for the user.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.8-14
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• 2024

In this study, the scale of renewable photovoltaic(PV) panels and hydrogen fuel storage facilities required to achieve "net zero carbon emissions" in military facilities were predicted based on actual electricity consumption. It was set up to expect the appropriate installation size of PV panel and hydrogen fuel storage facility for achieving carbon neutrality, limited to the electricity consumption in the public sector, including national defense and social security administration in Yeongcheon. The experimental results of this paper are largely composed of two parts. First, representative meteorological factors were considered to predict solar power generation in the Yeongcheon area, and solar power generation was estimated through a multiple regression model using deep learning techniques. Second, the size of solar power generation facilities and hydrogen storage facilities in military bases was estimated with the amount of solar power generation and electricity consumption. As a result of this analysis, it was calculated that a site of 155.76×104 m² for PV panels was needed and a facility capable of storing 27,657 kg of hydrogen gas was required. Through these results, it is meaningful to demonstrated the prospect that military units can lead the achievement of "carbon net zero 2050" by using PV panels and hydrogen fuel storage facilities on idle sites of military bases.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.880-886
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• 2011

With the introduction of high-current 8-inch solar cells, conventional Schottky bypass diodes, usually adopted in photovoltaic (PV) panels to prevent the hot spot phenomenon, are becoming ineffective as they cause relatively high voltage drops with associated undue power consumption. In this paper, we present the architecture of an active circuit that reduces the aforementioned power dissipation by profitably replacing the bypass diode through a power MOS switch with its embedded driving circuitry. Experimental prototypes were fabricated and tested, showing that the proposed solution allows a reduction of the power dissipation by more than 70% compared to conventional Schottky diodes. The whole circuit does not require a dedicated DC power and is fully compatible with standard CMOS technologies. This enables its integration, even directly on the panel, thereby opening new scenarios for next generation PV systems.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.62 no.4
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• pp.465-475
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• 2017

Photovoltaic (PV) panels are used in high-rise buildings to convert solar energy to electricity. Due to the considerable energy consumption of high-rise buildings, applying PV technology is of great significance to energy saving. In the application of PV panels, one of the most important construction issues is the connection of the PV panel with the main structures. One major difficulty of the connection design is that the PV panel connection consists of two separate components with coupling and indeterminate dimension. In this paper, the gap element is employed in these two separated but coupled components, i.e., hook and catch. Topology optimization is applied to optimize and design the cross-section of the PV panel connection. Pareto optimization is conducted to operate the optimization subject to multiple load scenarios. The initial design for the topology optimization is determined by the common design specified by the Technical Code for Glass Curtain Wall Engineering (JGJ 102-2003). Gravity and wind load scenarios are considered for the optimization and numerical analysis. Post analysis is conducted for the optimal design obtained by the topology optimization due to the manufactory requirements. Generally, compared with the conventional design, the optimized connector reduces material use with improved structural characteristics.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.1259-1269
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• 2019

PV system performance is dependent on different irradiations and temperature values in addition to the capability of the employed PV inverter / maximum power point tracker (MPPT) circuit or algorithm. Therefore, it would be appropriate to use a PV simulator capable of producing identical repeatable conditions regardless of the weather to evaluate the performance of inverter / MPPT circuits and algorithms. In accordance with this purpose, a photovoltaic (PV) array simulator is presented in this paper. The simulator is designed to generate current-voltage (I-V) and power-voltage (P-V) curves of a PV panel. Series connected cascaded modules constitute the basic part of the simulator. This feature also allows for the modeling of PV arrays since the number of modules can be increased and high voltage values can be reached with the simulator. In addition, the curves obtained at the simulator output become similar to the actual curves of sample PV panels with an increase in the number of modules. In order to show the validity of the proposed simulator, it was simulated for various situations such as panels under full irradiance and partial shading conditions. After completing simulations, experiments were realized to support the simulation study. Both simulation and experimental results show that the proposed simulator will be very useful for researchers to carry out PV studies under laboratory conditions.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2015.07a
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• pp.103-104
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• 2015

Solar energy has proven to be a potential clean energy source to help offset the large consumption of fossil. Nowadays, many research projects aim to enhance photovoltaic (PV) system performance and functionality. This research focuses on integrating self-monitor capability into dc-dc converters that control PV panels to detect a fault in series-connected PV cells, called hot spotting. A detection method using ac parameter characterization is proposed and its operation is examined through simulation.