Scientists from St. Petersburg Polytechnic University Peter the Great (Spbpu) has developed a technology that improves the efficiency of solar plants. For this, the researchers proposed a new approach to solving problems of uneven aging of the photovoltaic solar panels without the replacement of obsolete parts new. The results of the study were published in an article in the prestigious journal "Energy".
As explained by scientists, the use of solar panels in the process of energy generation is associated with a number of difficulties: at ambient conditions the solar cell is exposed to dirt, moisture and significant temperature changes. In addition, according to them, due to cloud cover plates have brownouts, and this affects the service life of the panels and the efficiency of impact energy.
All these factors lead to the fact that electrical characteristics of PV modules can vary considerably, which reduces the efficiency of the entire solar plant.
"Our research group is developing technology that enables solar plants to generate the maximum possible power that does not depend on different characteristics of the panels", — said the graduate of the Higher school of high-voltage energy Spbpu Ahmed Refaat.
As explained by the Professor of the Higher school of high-voltage energy Spbpu Nikolay Korovkin, are currently used such schemes of the power sum panels, which resulted in the partial replacement of obsolete modules becomes unprofitable. In addition, he added that the photovoltaic modules of the same brand typically are not identical due to manufacturing defects in the material.
"Right" totalizing capacity of the panels, offered by us, is of considerable interest for practical application," he says.
According to scientists, the simulation results show a significant increase in maximum output power. The researchers demonstrated that when using the developed system the power extracted from the uneven-aged matrix in photovoltaic solar panels increases significantly.
Thus, according to Spbpu, the percentage of energy savings to regroup the old photovoltaic panels is 16,82%, and then increased to 21.86%. The percentage of maximum output power generated after rearrangement of the PV panels, is of 99.89% compared to only 78,03% under normal conditions.
In the future, scientists plan to test a new method of experimental enterprises for the production of solar panels in Egypt.
