Design, Installation, and Solar Energy Efficiency Assessment of A
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Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2008 Design, Installation, and Solar Energy Efficiency Assessment Using a Dual#Axis Tracker by Kaifan Kyle Wang Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY FAMU‐FSU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING DESIGN, INSTALLATION, AND SOLAR ENERGY EFFICIENCY ASSESSMENT USING A DUAL‐AXIS TRACKER By KAIFAN KYLE WANG A Thesis submitted to the Department of Industrial Engineering in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2008 Copyright©2008 Kyle Wang All Rights Reserved The members of the Committee approve the Thesis of KaiFan Kyle Wang defended on November 07, 2008. _____________________________ Yaw A. Owusu Professor Directing Thesis _____________________________ Samuel A. Awoniyi Committee Member _____________________________ Egwu E. Kalu Committee Member Approved: _____________________________________________ Chuck Zhang, Chair, Department of Industrial Engineering _____________________________________________ ChinJen Chen, College Engineering The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Acknowledgement to the sponsor: Research Center for Cutting Edge Technologies (RECCET) the laboratory where the research took place. Special thanks to the United States Department of Education in Washington, D.C through the Title III Program for the financial support. Thanks to my major professor, Dr. Yaw A. Owusu, whose guidance and encouragement helped me with the thesis. Thanks to the other committee members: Dr. Samuel A. Awoniyi and Dr. Egwu E. Kalu whose technical advice and support for making this accomplishment possible. My appreciation also goes to the Dr. Hans Chapman and Mr. Ron Cutwright for their steady assistance throughout the whole project. Appreciation to the schoolmates: Thomas Anthony, Yaw Nyanteh, Wooden Shanon, Russel Ford and Guillermo Maduro for their assistances for dual‐axis tracker installation and data collection Last but not least, my profound gratitude goes to my parents, who inspired me to study abroad and to pursue the master degree. Their encouragements have made it possible for me to complete this portion of my education in life. iii ABSTRACT Environmental and economic problems caused by over‐dependence on fossil fuels have increased the demand and request for green energy produced by alternative renewable sources. Producing electricity by using photovoltaic cells (also called solar cells) is a fast growing industry. There are two main ways to make photovoltaic cells more efficient. One method is to improve the materials design and the other is to optimize the output by installing the solar panels on a tracking base that follows the sun. This research employed the latter method. The main purpose of the thesis was to design and assemble of a dual‐axis solar tracker with a view to assess the improvement in solar conversion efficiency. A comparative analysis was performed using three systems, i.e., Dual‐Axis Tracking, Single‐Axis Tracking and Stationary Modules. ‘’Design Expert 6.0” statistical software was used to process the design of experiment and to determine the effects of four chosen factors (Tracking or No Tracking, Type of Modules, Time of the Day, and Weather Condition). The results showed that the use of the Dual‐Axis Tracking System produced 18% gain of power output, compared with a Single‐Axis Tracking System. The gain of output power with the Dual‐Axis Tracking System was much higher (53%) when compared with a stationary system inclined at 30˚ to the horizontal. A benefit‐cost analysis performed on the three systems showed that the unit cost of energy produced by the Dual‐Axis Tracker is $0.53, which is reasonable, considering the state of the technology and the potential added benefit of any future amortization when employed on a large scale. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables vii List of Figures viii Chapter 1: Introduction to Thesis Research 1.0 Introduction 1 1.1 Problem Description 2 1.2 Research Objective 2 1.3 Project Rationale and Benefits 3 Chapter 2: Literature Review 2.0 Introduction to Literature Review 4 2.1 History of Photovoltaic 4 2.2 P‐N Junction 5 2.3 Physics of a Solar Cell 8 2.4 Efficiency of a Solar Cell 9 2.5 Meteorological Factors that Affect Solar Energy Conversion 10 2.5.1 Cloud Cover 11 2.5.2 Turbidity 11 2.5.3 Total Ozone 11 2.5.4 Precipital Water Vapor 12 2.6 Spectral Response of Silicon Solar Cells 12 2.7 Temperature Influence on the Efficiency 15 2.8 Solar Tracking Systems 16 2.9 Crystalline Silicon Based Photovoltaic Cell 19 2.10 Indoor Assessment Procedure(Standard Testing Condition) and Outdoor Testing of Photovoltaic Modules 20 2.11 Mean Time Before Failure (MTBF) of the PV Modules 21 2.12 Photovoltaic System 22 Chapter 3: Methodology 3.0 Introduction 24 3.1 AZ‐125 Dual‐Axis Solar Tracker Installation and System Design 24 3.1.1 Concrete Foundation 24 3.1.2 Gear Motor and Sensor 25 v 3.1.3 System Design 27 3.2 Preliminary Data Collection 29 3.3 Design of Experiments (Choice of Factors and Data Collection) 29 3.3.1 Fish Bone Diagram of Power Output (Voltage and Current) 30 3.3.2 The Controllable Factors 30 3.3.3 The Nuisance Factors 31 3.3.4 Response Variable 32 3.3.5 Data Collection 32 Chapter 4: Data Analysis and Results 4.0 Introduction 36 4.1 Preliminary Data Analysis 36 4.2 The Actual Experiment and Data Analysis 41 4.2.1 General Regression Model of Power Output variables 45 4.2.2 Model Adequacy Checking 46 4.2.3 Model Validation 49 4.3 Performance Improvement Analysis 51 4.4 Cost Analysis of Dual‐Axis Tracker 56 Chapter 5: Concluding Remarks and Future Work 5.1 Summary and Conclusions 58 5.2 Recommendations and Future Work 59 References 60 Biographical Sketch 62 vi LIST OF TABLES 1 Spectrum Response Ranges and Energy Gaps for Various PV Materials 13 2 Comparison of Mono‐crystalline and Poly‐crystalline Silicon 20 3 Indoor Assessment Procedures Conducted on Modules Evaluated 21 4 Choice of Factors and Levels for Design of Experiment 31 5 Data Collected on a Clear Sunny Day 39 6 Data Collected on a Partially Cloudy Day 40 7 Design Matrix and Observed Values of the Responses 41 8 Analysis of Variance Table (ANOVA) for Experiment 44 9 Summary Statistics of Analyzed Experiment 45 10 Sample of Generated Prediction Run 50 Power Output Values and Percentage Difference of 3 Systems Using 11 52 Mono‐crystalline Modules 12 Power Output Values and Percentage Difference of 3 Systems Using 53 Poly‐crystalline Modules 13 Installation Cost Analysis of AZ‐125 Dual‐Axis Tracker 56 14 Comparison of Dual‐Axis Tracker, Single‐Axis Tracker and Stationary 57 vii LIST OF FIGURES 1 Solar cell, Photovoltaic Modules and Photovoltaic Array 1 2 Simplified Diagram of P‐N Junction 6 3 Graph of P‐N Junction of Voltage and Current 7 4 Movement of Electrons in P‐N Junction 7 5 I‐V Characteristic Curve of Solar Cells 9 6 Diagram Shows the Spectrum Wavelength, Frequency and Photo Energy 13 7 Sun’s Apparent Motion in Different Season 17 8 Movement of Passive Tracker and its Structure Scheme 18 9 Dual‐Axis Solar Tracker Combines Two Motions 19 10 Completed PV System 23 11 Schematic Representation of the Dual‐Axis Solar Tracker Foundation 25 12 Diagram Shows the Capability of Movement of AZ‐125 Solar Tracker 26 13 Simplified Schematic Diagram of Light Sensor 27 14 The Schematic Diagram of AZ‐125 System Design 28 15 Fish Bone Chart of Factors Affecting the Power Output 30 16 Two Stationary Modules Inclined at an Angle of Thirty Degrees 33 17 The Single‐Axis Tracker Used for Data Collection 34 18 The Dual‐Axis Tracker Used for Data Collection 35 19 The Power Curves of Three Systems on a Clear Sunny Day 37 20 The Power Curves of Three Systems on a Partially Cloudy Day 38 21 Half Normal Probability Plot of Effects 43 22 Normal Probability Plot of Residuals for Experiment 46 23 Plot of Residuals versus Predicted Response for Experiment 47 24 Plot of Residuals versus Run Number for Experiment 48 25 Outlier T Plot for Experiment 48 viii 26 Interaction Graph of CD for Experiment 49 27 Diagram of Power Output Curves for 3 Systems Using Mono‐crystalline 54 Modules 28 Diagram of Power Output Curves for 3 Systems Using Poly‐crystalline 55 Modules ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION TO THESIS RESEARCH 1.0 Introduction Industrial and domestic reliance on the use of fossil fuel is today facing challenges in demand and environmental consideration. Faced with a possibility of scarce oil resources and increasing concern about its harmful byproducts, such as toxic pollution, global climate change and acid rain, awareness of using renewable energy is growing. There are many kinds of renewable energy sources like solar, hydrogen fuel cell, wind, biomass and geothermal. Solar energy technology is one of the promising sources of future energy supplies because it is clean and remarkably abundant. Solar energy can be converted into electricity through the solar cells. Individual cells (Figure 1(a)) are assembled to make photovoltaic modules (Figure 1(b)). Several modules can be linked in photovoltaic arrays (Figure 1(c)). (a) (b) (c) Figure 1.1: (a) A solar cell, the smallest unit to convert solar energy into electricity. (b) A photovoltaic module is a packaged interconnected assembly of solar cells. (c) A photovoltaic array is a linked assembly of PV modules. 1 1.1 Problem Description Photovoltaic energy involves the conversion of sunlight into electricity.