Solutions to Solar photovoltaic practice problems

Fall 2017, TD 607

1. What is the areal power density of solar radiation at Standard Test Conditions (STC)?
What else defines STC?

1000 W/ m2 ; Temperature of 25 C and spectrum AM 1.5;

2. How much power does a panel rated for 230W generate when AM 1.5 radiation is
incident on it at normal incidence (i.e. at right angle)? Or in other words, what does
power rating of a panel signify?

A 230W panel generates 230W when 1000 W/m2 solar radiation in incident at normal
incidence.

A panel is rated by the power it generates under standard test conditions. These
conditions are as stated in problem 1.

3. It is stated that (on an average) the solar resource of a certain location is 5kWh/m 2/day
at 22 south facing. What is the total solar energy incident on a 1 m 2 panel mounted at
the same angle in a day?

5 kWh

4. Solar resource is measured in kWh/m2/day. What does solar resource mean? What are
the types of solar resource?

Solar resource at a location is the total solar energy incident on a surface of area 1 m 2
over a period of 1 day at that location, often represented as an annual average. The
exact value of this energy will depend on the angle of the surface. Hence there are
different solar resource measurements.

For example:
Global horizontal irradiance: This is the irradiance on a panel horizontal on the earths
surface
Global tilt irradiance: This is the irradiance on a panel at a certain angle. For our
purposes, one useful measure is a panel titled at the same angle as the latitude of that
location, and south facing in the northern hemisphere, and north facing in the southern
hemisphere. This is the configuration of a fixed panel that collects maximum solar
resource.
 Direct Normal irradiance: This is the irradiance reaching a panel without any scattering
or reflections, i.e. it is the radiation coming directly from the sun, light reflected from
other surfaces is not included.

5. How much energy does a 100W panel generate in one day, mounted at the location in
problem 3 and at the given angle?
A 100W panel generates 100W at AM 1.5 radiation or at 1kW/m 2 incident
radiation
A solar resource of 5 kWh is equivalent to 5 hours of 1kW/m2 solar radiation
Hence the 100W panel generates 5h x 100W = 500 Wh of energy /day

In general a panel rated at Y Watts, will generate Y * X Wh of energy with a solar

resource of X kWh/m2

This is because a solar resource of 1 kW/ m2 will cause the panel to generate rated
power (Y Watts). And a solar resource of X kWh/m2 is equivalent to 1 kW/m2 of solar
radiation incident for X hours.

6. If there is a requirement of 3 kWh of energy per day from solar photovoltaics, what
rating of panel should be mounted in a location with 5 kWh/m 2/day solar resource?
What if we want to take care of back up for one additional day in case there is cloudy
weather?

A 1 kW panel will generate 5 kWh of energy per day

Hence to get 3 kWh of energy/day we need a panel of:

3/5 = 0.6 kW

If we want a back of one day, we need to get a panel of 0.6* 2 = 1.2 kW

7. If in the above problem, we need to also provide batteries to store the energy generated
in one day, what would the battery capacity be in kWh, considering a depth of discharge
of 75%.

The energy to be stored per day = 3kWh

With a depth of discharge of 75%, the battery capacity should be:
3kWh/0.75 = 4 kWh

8. What if the battery above had an efficiency of 85%? What should the rating of the panel
be, taking this new information into consideration, and what should the battery capacity
be?

The rating of the panel should be higher:

 0.6 kW/ 0.85 = 0.71 kW

Battery capacity should be:

4 kWh / 0.85 = 4.7 kWh

9. A home lighting system of 2 CFL bulbs rated at 15 W each need to run for 4 hours per
day, and a cell phone charger rated at 5W needs to run for 2 hours per day. What kind of
a solar PV system would you design? Find panel rating, and battery rating in kWh. Add
capacity of one extra day of back up, assume a battery efficiency of 85%, and design for
a depth of discharge of 65%. Assume a solar resource of 4 kWh/m 2/day

Total energy required per day = 2*15W*4h + 5W *2h = 130 Wh

For a back up of one extra day total energy required = 160 Wh = 0.16 kWh

With a solar resource of 4 kWh/m2/day, the panel rating required =

0.16 / 4 = 0.04 kW

For one extra days backup: 0.04 * 2 = 0.08 kW

For a battery efficiency of 85% and a depth of discharge of 65%:

Panel rating = 0.08/ (0.85 * 0.65) = 0.144 kW

Total energy required per day with backup = 0.16 kWh

Considering battery efficiency and depth of discharge, battery capacity:

1.16 Wh / (0.85 * 0.65) = 0.29 kWh

10. A PV system in a remote village needs to power up:

In a school for 8 hours a day- one computer (200W), 2 fans (70W each)
In 40 homes for 4 hours a day 2 CFL bulbs (15W each)
Street lights for 12 hours a day 12 CFL bulbs (18W each)

a. What is the minimum photovoltaic panel rating required if the average solar resource is
4 kWh/m2/day?

Total energy required = 8 h X (200 + 2x 70) W + 4 h x 40 x 2 x 15 W + 12 h x 12 x 18 W

= 2720 Wh + 4800 Wh + 2593 Wh
= 10112 Wh = 10.1 kWh

Panel requirement = 10.112 kWh / 4 h = 2.528 kW or 2.6 kW;

 b. Since the school runs in the daytime, the battery requirement for those systems is
reduced by 20% of the total energy requirement. What is the total battery requirement
for a depth of discharge of 60%, and no backup days. Assume a battery efficiency of 90%,
an inverter efficiency of 90%, and losses in the lines of 3%.

Battery requirement for: 10.112 kWh x 0.80 (80%) = 8.1 kWh

For a depth of discharge of 60%, the battery should be designed to store: 8.1 / 0.60 = 13.5 kWh

Adding battery efficiency of 90%, inverter efficiency of 90%, line losses of 3%:

Energy to be stored in battery = 13.5 kWh/ (0.9 x 0.9 x 0.97) = 17.2 kWh

[Line loss of 3% => Line efficiency of 97%]

c. How many batteries of the given specifications will be required: 12V, 150 Ah?

Each battery of given specification can store energy = 12 V x 150 Ah = 1800 Wh or 1.8 kWh

No. of batteries required = 17.2 kWh / 1.8 kWh = 9.6; Hence 10 batteries

d. If on an average, in the actual implementation, the loading is only 80% of what was
initially estimated, then how long will the batteries last (consider the number of
batteries you have calculated)? Use lifetime data given below.
No. of cycles

Depth of discharge

With 80% loading, the daily energy usage on an average is:

17.2 kWh x 0.8 = 13.76 kWh

No of batteries in the system: 10

Each battery stores: 1.8 kWh
Total energy stored in batteries: 10 x 1.8 kWh = 18 kWh

Depth of discharge = 13. 76 / 18 = 0.76 or 76%

Lifetime = 550 cycles = 1.5 years

11. From the figure below, find the energy a 100W panel would generate over the day.
Discretize in 1 hour increments. Assume constant efficiency (as measured at STC) over
this period.

Total solar resource incident over a day can be calculated from the above plot as follows:

20x 0.5 + 180x1 + 380 x1 + 630x1 + 840x1 + 920x1 + 920x1 + 840x1 + 700x1 + 500x1 + 280x1 +
70x1
= 6270 Wh/m2 = 6.270 kWh/m2

Over the whole day a 100W panel would generate: 6.270h x 100W = 627Wh

12. What is the function of:

a. A charge controller
b. A Maximum Power Point Tracker
c. An inverter

See class slides.

 13. A 5HP pump requires PV panels with a total rating of 5 kW to run. If the efficiency of the
panels being used is 17%, realistically how much land area is required for the
installation? State any assumptions.

1 kW incident radiation, generates 1*0.17 = 0.17 kW

Hence 5 kW requires radiation 5/0.17 = 29.4 kW incident radiation

Area of incident radiation at power density of 1 kW/m2 is =

(29.4 kW) /(1 kW/m2 ) = 29.4 m2