Hotspot testing of a shade resilient smart photovoltaic panel

Abstract

To be able to prevent some future natural disasters for nature, wildlife and humans reduction of greenhouse gases is needed as these are the source of human-induced climate change. The energy sector is one of the main emitters of the two most important greenhouse gases: methane and CO2. Electricity for buildings and the industry are large sources of these. Solar photovoltaic is an interesting alternative and renewable option for electricity production. However, hotspots from partial-shading are currently a major problem for PV panels as these lower electricity problems and can result in damage of the panel. Many techniques are tried or currently applied, but hotspots are still occurring. By Golroodbari et al. (2019) an alternative PV panel structure was proposed in which the PV cells are optimized per group of ten instead of per module or per multiple modules. In this research the module is tested wired smart or in series to be able to make a comparison. Two setups were made: one using halogen lights and one using LED lights to lower the chance that the light source was reason for certain test results. Tests endured multiple hours and an infrared image was made every five minutes to check the module for hotspots. Also the I and V data were measured for further analysis if hotspots occurred. Furthermore, a comparable module was tested to exclude the option of no hotspots occurring due to the adjustments made to make the PV module smart. A total of 10 hotspots were found spread over two test round which were both in series. No hotspots were found in the smart PV panel test rounds. However, the irradiation intensity for both test setups was not very high with a maximum of 340W/m2. But, as hotspots occurred in this research it is expected that this did not affect the test results. So, it can be concluded that the smart PV panel proposed by Golroodbari et al. (2019) is hotspots resilient under indoor testing conditions. Additionally, recommended follow-up research would be outdoor testing, but current results are already expected to result in market interest.