Design and Construction of a Sun Simulator for Laboratory Testing of Solar Cells

Abstract

The current study is dedicated to the realization and development of an ASTM E972 standardized, class C sunlight simulator. Sunlight simulators or sun simulators are laboratory devices used to study solar cells. Our sun simulator is suitable for the examination and qualification of solar cells, with an area of 150 mm x 150 mm. It consists of 4 LED blocks of different colors and a halogen reflector. The completed sun simulator is validated; the design and realized parameters display good matching.

Design and Development of a Conceptual Solar Energy Laboratory for District Heating Applications

“…This lab is designed to serve students and researchers with experimental learning on solar microgrids. István et al [11] developed a solar simulator for a university laboratory and experimentally demonstrated that the fabricated system is on par with a commercial one, with a satisfactory measurement error (±0.022%).…”

Experimental and numerical analysis of solar cell temperature transients

“…As a precursor to this research, a standard solar simulator was developed. Requirements for solar simulators are managed by American Standard for Testing and Materials (ASTMs) E972 (IEC 60904-9) [1]. The solar simulator implemented in the current research is a standard Class C, so both spatial non-uniformity and temporal non-uniformity are below 10%.…”

“…The temperature of the solar cell is controlled by a cooling module made using Peltier modules [1]. The temperature of the solar cell is measured by a Voltcraft PL-125-T4 four-channel digital thermometer, furthermore current and voltage measurements are performed by two METEIX MX 59H digital multimeters.…”

“…Experimental results were obtained by providing artificial illumination using an ASTM E972 (IEC 60904-9) [1], standard solar simulator. Correlations were then obtained with the help of the measurement results and the results acquired from MATLAB simulations [2].…”

Optimal design and experimental test of a solar simulator for solar photovoltaic modules

“…These simulators usually use LED lights, [4][5][6][7] xenon-based lights, [8][9][10][11] or QTH lamps. 12,13 Gheorghian et al 14 proposed a solar simulator that uses two different lights sources: four floodlights halogen lamps and two lamps arrangements, both of them capable of producing a nonuniformity of irradiance under 10% over an area of 31 × 31 cm 2 . Salam et al 15 developed a solar simulator based on QTH lamps filtering part of the infrared spectrum with a water tank diluted with blue dye placed between the light source and the SPVM.…”