Increase the Efficiency of Solar Panel by Using Mirrors

I.Vinothkanna

Department of Mechanical Engineering, MahendraEngineeringCollege, Namakkal.

Co Authors

P.Senthilkumaran; R.Tamilselvan (MahendraEngineeringCollege, Namakkal)

Abstract

Today power crisis is the major problem we are facing now. As an engineer, we should overcome this power crisis by some innovative alternate methods. Solar energy is the right source to overcome this power crisis as well as power demand. Even after the invention of solar panel, still we are facing this power crisis due to increase of human population and industrial growth. This article aims at introducing an innovative method with better efficiency which has the same expenses of an exciting solar panel.

  1. Introduction:

In today's climate of growing energy needs and increasing environmental concern, alternatives to the use of non-renewable and polluting fossil fuels have to be investigated. One such alternative is solar energy.

Solar energy is quite simply the energy produced directly by the sun and collected elsewhere, normally the Earth. The sun creates its energy through a thermonuclear process that converts about 650,000,000 tons of hydrogen to helium every second. The process creates heat and electromagnetic radiation. The heat remains in the sun and is instrumental in maintaining the thermonuclear reaction. The electromagnetic radiation (including visible light, infra-red light, and ultra-violet radiation) streams out into space in all directions.

Only a very small fraction of the total radiation produced reaches the Earth. The radiation that does reach the Earth is the indirect source of nearly every type of energy used today. The exceptions are geothermal energy, and nuclear fission and fusion. Even fossil fuels owe their origins to the sun; they were once living plants and animals whose life was dependent upon the sun.

Much of the world's required energy can be supplied directly by solar power. More still can be provided indirectly. The practicality of doing so will be examined, as well as the benefits and drawbacks. In addition, the uses solar energy is currently applied to will be noted.

Due to the nature of solar energy, two components are required to have a functional solar energy generator. These two components are a collector and a storage unit. The collector simply collects the radiation that falls on it and converts a fraction of it to other forms of energy (either electricity and heat or heat alone). The storage unit is required because of the non-constant nature of solar energy; at certain times only a very small amount of radiation will be received. At night or during heavy cloud cover, for example, the amount of energy produced by the collector will be quite small. The storage unit can hold the excess energy produced during the periods of maximum productivity, and release it when the productivity drops. In practice, a backup power supply is usually added, too, for the situations when the amount of energy required is greater than both what is being produced and what is stored in the container.

Methods of collecting and storing solar energy vary depending on the uses planned for the solar generator.

  1. History of Solar panel

Thephotovoltaic effectwas first experimentally demonstrated by French physicistEdmond Becquerel. In 1839, at age 19, experimenting in his father's laboratory, he built the world's first photovoltaic cell. Willoughby Smith first described the "Effect of Light on Selenium during the passage of an Electric Current" in an article that was published in 20 February 1873 issue of Nature. However, it was not until 1883 that the firstsolid statephotovoltaic cell was built, byCharles Fritts, who coated the semiconductor selenium with an extremely thin layer of gold to form the junctions.

The device was only around 1% efficient. In 1888 Russian physicistAleksandr Stoletovbuilt the first cell based on the outerphotoelectric effectdiscovered by Heinrich Hertzearlier in 1887.

Albert Einsteinexplained the underlying mechanism of light instigated carrier excitation—thephotoelectric effect—in 1905, for which he received the Nobel prize in Physics in 1921. Russell Ohlpatented the modern junction semiconductor solar cell in 1946, which was discovered while working on the series of advances that would lead to thetransistor.

The first practical photovoltaic cell was developed in 1954 atBell Laboratoriesby Daryl Chapin,Calvin Southern Fullerand Gerald Pearson. They used a diffused silicon p–n junction that reached 6% efficiency, compared to theseleniumcells that found it difficult to reach 0.5%. Les HoffmanCEO of Hoffman Electronics Corporation had his Semiconductor Division pioneer the fabrication and mass production of solar cells. From 1954 to 1960 Hoffman improved the efficiency of Solar Cells from 2% to 14%. At first, cells were developed for toys and other minor uses, as the cost of the electricity they produced was very high; in relative terms, a cell that produced 1 watt of electrical power in bright sunlight cost about $250, comparing to $2 to $3 per watt for a coal plant.

Solar cells were brought from obscurity by the suggestion to add them, probably due to the successes made byHoffman Electronics, to theVanguard Isatellite, launched in 1958. In the original plans, the satellite would be powered only by battery, and last a short time while this ran down. By adding cells to the outside of the body, the mission time could be extended with no major changes to the spacecraft or its power systems. In 1959 the United States launchedExplorer 6. It featured large solar arrays resembling wings, which became a common feature in future satellites. These arrays consisted of 9600Hoffman solar cells. There was some skepticism at first, but in practice the cells proved to be a huge success, and solar cells were quickly designed into many new satellites, notably Bell's ownTelstar.

Improvements were slow over the next two decades, and the only widespread use was in space applications where theirpower-to-weight ratiowas higher than any competing technology. However, this success was also the reason for slow progress; space users were willing to pay anything for the best possible cells, there was no reason to invest in lower-cost solutions if this would reduce efficiency. Instead, the price of cells was determined largely by the semiconductor industry; their move tointegrated circuitsin the 1960s led to the availability of largerboulesat lower relative prices. As their price fell, the price of the resulting cells did as well. However these effects were limited, and by 1971 cell costs were estimated to be $100 per watt.

  1. Background

India is the fifth largest consumer of energy in the world. We consumed 3,182,000 barrels of oil per day. Coal demand is 686 million tones. We used 600.6 million kwh electricity in 2013, still 70,000 mw power shortages. Over 300 million Indian citizens had no access to electricity. Power shortage in south India 6,120 mw in Dec’13. So what we are going to do for our next generation.

Welcome to the world of Renewable energy sources. Solar energy is a perfect solution for Indian climate.

  1. Working

A solar cell is an electronic device which directly converts sunlight into electricity. Light shining on the solar cell produces both a current and a voltage to generate electric power. This process requires firstly, a material in which the absorption of light raises an electron to a higher energy state, and secondly, the movement of this higher energy electron from the solar cell into an external circuit. The electron then dissipates its energy in the external circuit and returns to the solar cell. A variety of materials and processes can potentially satisfy the requirements for photovoltaic energy conversion, but in practice nearly all photovoltaic energy conversion uses semiconductor materials in the form of ap-njunction.

Fig 3.1 PV Cell

4.1 The basic steps in the operation of a solar cell are:

The generation of light-generated carriers;

The collection of the light-generated carries to generate a current;

The generation of a large voltage across the solar cell; and

The dissipation of power in the load and in parasitic resistances.

  1. Survey

The output of a solar PV system depends on are either 1 kw or 1.5 kw, although some property owners have installed systems of up to 10 kw. The table below shows the average daily production of some common grid-connected systems throughout Tamilnadu based upon its size.

A typical Tamilnadu house consumers around 18 kwh per day so a 1-2 kw system displaces an average of 25- 40% of your average electricity bill. Solar panels produce more energy in summer than they do in winter.

Data source :

PV – GC Spreadsheet based on the CEC GC design Guidelines

Average Daily Production
City / 1 kw system / 1.5 kw system / 2 kw system / 3 kw system / 4 kw system
(kwh)
Madurai / 4.3 / 6.45 / 8.9 / 12.9 / 17.2
Salem / 5.0 / 7.5 / 10.0 / 15.0 / 20.0
Namakkal / 4.4 / 6.6 / 8.8 / 13.2 / 17.6
Trichy / 4.8 / 7.2 / 9.1 / 13.45 / 18.65
Coimbatore / 4.1 / 6.2 / 8.2 / 12.85 / 16.1
Theni / 3.8 / 5.8 / 7.1 / 11.89 / 14.5

Table 5.1 Average daily production of power in Tamilnadu.

  1. Concept

Hereby I introduced a new solar panel system as shown in below diagram.

Instead of sunrays directly falls on the solar panel it to be fall on the mirror which is a new design. We all are very well known that the production of solar power is directly propositional to the intensity of sunlight. The intensity of sunlight is very much higher with the reflection of sun light from the mirror than the ordinary sunlight intensity.

So here I designed the solar panel as, the sun light focused on the mirror after reflection of their rays focused to the solar panel which will increases the power production rate.

Intensity of light α Power generation
  1. Comparison

The below table which will clearly indicates power production rate between ordinary solar panel and new designed solar panel.

Time / Ordinary / New designed / Status
Volts
10- 11 am / 120 / 114 / Ordinary
11- 12 am / 162 / 281 / New
12- 1 pm / 253 / 350 / New
1- 2 pm / 238 / 309 / New
2- 3 pm / 198 / 152 / Ordinary

Table 7.1 Testing at varies places

Place of Testing: Namakkal

System Capacity: 1 kw system

Inspection Time: 10.00 am – 3.00 pm

Graph 7.1 Comparison older with Newer Design of Power production.

  1. Conclusion

My project was very productive. My hypothesis was: we think that solar energy can be used to power electronic appliances while not polluting the environment.

The results of my research proved that solar power caused no pollution whatsoever. What we did not mention, was that solar energy can be used to power houses and their electronic appliances, such as flashlights, electric motors and even such things as refrigerators. It can also be used to heat water and cool buildings!

There are many possible ways of demonstrating how solar energy can be used. One way would be to demonstrate physically, such as building a model that runs on solar energy such as a car or something that uses an electric motor. Another way to demonstrate would be to compare solar energy to other alternative energy sources to see which one produces the most power or least pollution.

With the application of new system we may collect much more energy with short time period which should reduce our power demand.

Solar Energy – Today’s resources for a brighter tomorrow.

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