• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
• /
• v.30 no.6
• /
• pp.118-124
• /
• 2010

In order to develop commercial model of 10kW dish-Stirling solar thermal power system, modification for the exiting facility was taken for a year as a Leading Project in KIER. During the project, solar tracking system, control and monitoring system and high durability reflector were developed and long term operation were performed. The solar tracking system was tested for four months to investigate the degree of precision and adapted to the control system for an actual operation from October in 2009. The sun tracking accuracy of ${\pm}4$ mrad using modified control system was obtained and the system operated successfully during the experimental period. The monitoring system displays engine pressure, electric generation amounts, generator RPM, receiver temperatures, and etc. from Stirling engine and weather data of Direct Normal Irradiation, Horizontal Global Insolation, wind speed & direction, and atmosphere temperature from weather station. According to the operating results in a clear sky day, electric power of 6,890 W was generated at the DNI value of 850 W/$m^2$ and the averaged solar-to-electricity efficiency during a whole day reached to 18.99%. From the overall operating results, linear power generation trend could be observed with increasing DNI value. The solar-to-electricity efficiency achieved to 19% around the DNI value of 700 W/$m^2$ and increased to 20% when the DNI value goes up to 900 W/$m^2$.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
• /
• v.16 no.7
• /
• pp.711-719
• /
• 2010

Heliostat, as a concentrator reflecting the incident solar energy to the receiver located at the tower, is the most important system in the tower-type solar thermal power plant, since it determines the efficiency and performance of solar thermal plower plant. Thus, a good sun tracking ability as well as its good optical property are required. In this paper, we propose a method to compensate the heliostat sun tracking error. We first model the sun tracking error, which could be measured using BCS (Beam Characterization System), by multilayered neural network. Then the extended Kalman filter was employed to train the neural network. Finally the model is used to compensate the sun tracking errors. Simulated result shows that the method proposed in this paper improve the heliostat sun tracking performance dramatically. It also shows that the training of neural network by the extended Kalman filter provides faster convergence property, more accurate estimation and higher measurement noise rejection ability compared with the other training methods like gradient descent method.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.141-153
• /
• 2005

PV 태양광 발전은 PV 재료가 고가이므로 일반 전력비용에 비해 상대적으로 비용이 높아진다. 저가형 광학 집광기술과 PV를 통합하게 되면, 비용뿐만 아니라 설치면적 등에서 유리하게 되나, 집광기의 단점이 함께 추가되게 된다. 집광기는 작은 수광각과 송신광선을 갖고 있어 PV 모듈에 필요한 태양광, 광학손실의 손실정도를 최소화하기 위한 신중한 시스템 디자인과 2축형 트레킹 장치가 필요하다. 고정식 비집광 시스템보다 더 많은 에너지를 얻기 위해서는 광학시스템의 손실율을 줄이고, 고효율의 PV 모듈을 이용한 PV셀의 상호연결이 필요하다. 본 논문에서는 우선, 비이미지 프레넬 렌즈 집광기를 사용한 PV 시스템에 대하여 간단하게 설명한 후, 출력전력값을 이론적으로 예측하고 PV 효율과 시스템 성능을 제시하였다. 프레넬 렌즈 선형 집광기 통합 PV 시스템과 비집광 PV 모듈의 출력전력값과 시스템 비용을 비교하면, PV 전력비용을 줄일 수 있는 집광기의 이용이 유용한 것을 알 수 있다. 따라서, 집광형 PV 시스템은 미래의 에너지 이용에 매우 유리한 시스템이라 할 수 있다.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
• /
• v.14 no.4
• /
• pp.929-934
• /
• 2010

Improvements in characteristics of a single junction AlGaAs/GaAs solar cell are observed by capping a PMMA lens on it. In order to show the effect of the lens, characteristics of a single junction AlGaAs/GaAs solar cell before and after the lens formation are compared under the one-sun illumination condition ($100mW/cm^2$). Characteristics of the solar cell under very weak illumination condition (about 1200 lux) is also measured with the lighting of a fluorescent desk lamp. About 5% of cell efficiency is improved after the capping of PMMA lens on the single junction AlGaAs solar cell and $83\;{\mu}m/cm^2$ of electrical power was generated with the lighting of a desk lamp.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
• /
• v.18 no.5
• /
• pp.502-508
• /
• 2012

Heliostat, as a concentrator to reflect the incident solar energy to the receiver, is the most important system in the tower-type solar thermal power plant since it determines the efficiency and ultimately the overall performance of solar thermal power plant. Thus, a good sun tracking ability as well as a good optical property of it are required. Heliostat sun tracking system uses usually an open loop control system. Thus the sun tracking error caused by heliostat's geometrical error, optical error and computational error cannot be compensated. Recently use of sun tracking error model to compensate the sun tracking error has been proposed, where the error model is obtained from the measured ones. This work is a development of heliostat sun tracking error measurement and compensation method using BCS (Beam Characterization System). We first developed an image processing system to measure the sun tracking error optically. Then the measured error is modeled in linear polynomial form and neural network form trained by the extended Kalman filter respectively. Finally error models are used to compensate the sun tracking error. We also developed the necessary image processing algorithms so that the heliostat optical properties such as maximum heat flux intensity, heat flux distribution and total reflected heat energy could be analyzed. Experimentally obtained data shows that the heliostat sun tracking accuracy could be dramatically improved using either linear polynomial type error model or neural network type error model. Neural network type error model is somewhat better in improving the sun tracking performance. Nevertheless, since the difference between two error models in compensation of sun tracking error is small, a linear error model is preferred in actual implementation due to its simplicity.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
• /
• v.40 no.5
• /
• pp.23-34
• /
• 2020

Concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) system consists of high-quality complex optical elements, mechanical devices, and electronics components and can have the advantages of high integration and high-efficiency energy sources. III-V compound semiconductor cells have proven performance based on high reliability in the aerospace field, but have characteristics that require absolute support of the balance of systems (BOS) such as solar position trackers, receivers with heat sinks, and housing instruments. To determine the optimum parameters of secondary optical elements (SOEs) design for CPV systems, we designed three types of CPV modules, classified as non-SOEs type, reflective mirror type, and CPC lens type. We measured the I-V and P-V characteristics of the prototype CPV modules with the angle of inclination varying from 0° to 12° and with a 500-magnification Fresnel lens. The experimental results assumed misalignment of the solar position tracker or module design of pinpoint accuracy. As a result, at the 0° tilt angle, the CPC lens produced lower power due to the quartz transmittance ratio compared to that by other SOEs. However, for tilt angles greater than 3°, the CPC lens type module achieved high efficiency and stability. This study is expected to help design high-performance CPV systems.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.23 no.7
• /
• pp.575-579
• /
• 2010

The technologies of Ni/Cu plating contact is attributed to the reduced series resistance caused by a better contact conductivity of Ni with Si and the subsequent electroplating of Cu on Ni. The ability to pattern narrower grid lines for reduced light shading was combined with the lower resistance of a metal silicide contact and an improved conductivity of the plated deposit. This improves the FF (fill factor) as the series resistance is reduced. This is very much requried in the case of low concentrator solar cells in which the series resistance is one of the important and dominant parameter that affect the cell performance. A Selective emitter structure with highly dopeds regions underneath the metal contacts, is widely known to be one of the most promising high-efficiency solution in solar cell processing In this paper the formation of a selective emitter, and the nickel silicide seed layer at the front side metallization of silicon cells is considered. After generating the nickel seed layer the contacts were thickened by Cu LIP (light induced plating) and by the formation of a plated Ni/Cu two step metallization on front contacts. In fabricating a Ni/Cu plating metallization cell with a selective emitter structure it has been shown that the cell efficiency can be increased by at least 0.2%.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2011.05a
• /
• pp.68-68
• /
• 2011

본 연구에서는 PV cell이 직달 일사에 노출되는 경우와 집광된 태양광에 조사되는 경우의 성능을 비교하는 한편 집광기의 형태에 따른 열적 성능을 검토하고자 하였다. PV cell은 본질적으로 반도체의 특성을 가지므로 작동온도의 상승에 따라 성능이 저하된다는 사실이 알려져 있으며, 태양조사의 강도 및 밀도 등 특성에 따라서도 성능의 변화를 예상할 수 있다. 그러나 이러한 성능변화에 관련된 인자들과 그 영향의 크기에 대한 정량적인 기술자료가 부족하므로 설치와 이용에 한계가 있는 것이 현실이다. 인공태양 장치(solar simulator)를 이용하여 0.7에서 1.2 sun 범위의 태양 조사 환경에서 결정질 실리콘계 PV cell과 집광형 PV cell의 성능을 검토하였다. 집광에 사용한 PTC는 집광면적의 폭이 500 mm이며, 집광 조사면적이 최소 10 mm인 경우 이론적 최대 집광비가 50이었다. PTC의 축방향으로는 균일한 태양조사가 있게된다는 것을 가정하여 모델의 길이는 간편한 실험을 위해 150에서 500 mm의 범위에서 제작하였다. 수평으로 놓인 PTC의 상부 초점 위치로부터 집광면이 아래 쪽에 위치할수록 집광 조사 면적이 증가하므로 PV cell의 크기에 따라 PTC 초점의 위치로부터 거리를 결정하였다. 한편, PTC 자체의 성능도 촛점거리와 집광면 폭의 비에 따라 달라질 수 있다는 가정 하에, 포물면의 최저 위치로부터 촛점거리는 각각 300, 400 및 500 mm가 되도록 세가지 형태를 제작하여 사용하였다. 동일한 형태의 PTC에서 PV cell의 동일한 설치 위치에서도 최고 $110^{\circ}C$ 범위의 PV cell의 작동 (표면) 온도에 따른 성능의 차이를 관찰하기 위해 셀의 후면을 냉각시키는 경우와 그렇지 않은 경우를 비교하였다. PV cell의 표면 온도 측정을 위해서, 후면의 온도와 같이 광선 차단 효과의 우려가 없는 경우에는 열전대를 설치하였으며, 셀의 전면 온도 측정을 위해서는 비접촉식 적외선 온도계를 사용하였다. 냉각 방법으로는 공기를 이용한 자연대류와 액체를 사용하는 강제대류의 경우를 고려하였으며, 필요에 따라 적절히 설계된 히트싱크를 설치하여 비교 실험을 진행하였다. 강제대류 냉각의 경우는 항온조를 사용하여 순환하는 냉각수의 유량과 공급온도를 변화시킴으로써 PV cell의 작동온도를 조절하고, 이에 따른 발전 성능의 변화를 관찰하였다. 본 연구에서 도출한 실험 및 분석 결과는 PV cell의 설치 환경과 작동온도의 변화에 따라 그 성능 변화를 예측할 수 있는 기술적 자료를 제공함으로써 에너지 이용의 합리화를 도모하는데 기여할 수 있을 것이다.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.18 no.10
• /
• pp.777-784
• /
• 2017

Energy harvesting through a thermoelectric module normally makes use of the temperature gradient in the system's operational environment. Therefore, it is difficult to obtain the desired output power when the system is subjected to an environment in which a low temperature gradient is generated across the module, because the power generation efficiency of the thermoelectric device is not optimized. The utilization of solar energy, which is a form of renewable energy abundant in nature, has mostly been limited to photovoltaic solar cells and solar thermal energy generation. However, photovoltaic power generation is capable of utilizing only a narrow wavelength band from the sunlight and, thus, the power generation efficiency might be lowered by light scattering. In the case of solar thermal energy generation, the system usually requires large-scale facilities. In this study, a simple and small size thermoelectric power generation system with a solar concentrator was designed to create a large temperature gradient for enhanced performance. A solar tracking system was used to concentrate the solar thermal energy during the experiments and a liquid circulating chiller was installed to maintain a large temperature gradient in order to avoid heat transfer to the bottom of the thermoelectric module. Then, the setup was tested through a series of experiments and the performance of the system was analyzed for the purpose of evaluating its feasibility and validity.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
• /
• v.32 no.12
• /
• pp.1147-1153
• /
• 2010

To evaluate the solar photocatalytic degradation efficiency of chloroform in a real solar-light driven compound parabolic concentrators (CPCs) system, $TiO_2$ was irradiated with a metalhalide lamp (1000 W), which has a similar wavelength to sunlight. The results were applied to a pilot scale reactor system by converting the data to a standardized illumination time. In addition, the effects of initial pH and the $TiO_2$ dose on the photocatalytic degradation of chloroform were investigated. The results were compared with the specific surface area (S.S.A) and particle size of $TiO_2$, which changed according to the pH, to determine the relationship between the S.S.A, particle size and the photocatalytic degradation of chloroform. The experiment was carried out at pH 4~7 using 0.1, 0.2, 0.4 g/L of $TiO_2$. The particle size and specific surface area of $TiO_2$ were measured. There was no significant difference between the variables. However, pH affects the particle size distribution and specific surface area of $TiO_2$. Inaddition, the activation of a photocatalyst did not show a linear relationship with the specific surface area of $TiO_2$ in the photocatalytic degradation of chloroform.