Modelling and simulation of direct solar radiation for cost-effectiveness analysis of V-Trough photovoltaic devices

Abstract

In the urge to make solar energy competitive enough to directly face fossil fuels, several approaches result crucial for their intended capacity to maximise the energy that can be produced with a given photovoltaic area. Low Concentration Photovoltaics (LCPV) and tracking methods can be integrated in V-Trough solar devices to increase their effective solar harvesting area through low-cost non-imaging optics. As a tool to support the design and simulation of such devices, this work proposes an analytical and numerical model that simulates the interactions of direct solar radiation with the V-Trough's elements. The proposed model is design-oriented and was developed seeking high parameter flexibility, high geometrical detail and low computational demands. The model was experimentally validated through several simulations of V-Trough set-ups which results were compared against measurements with a testing platform. Through a non-parametric statistical analysis, the model proved to be satisfactory and highly accurate. Furthermore, the calculations regarding optical concentration performance were complemented with a cost analysis and integrated into a cost-effectiveness index. The results from this work serve as a useful modelling tool for designing and comparing alternatives of V-Trough solar devices.

Optimization of V-Trough photovoltaic concentrators through genetic algorithms with heuristics based on Weibull distributions

“…Depending on the given performance priorities, any of these indicators and indices can be established as the fitness function to be optimized by a genetic algorithm. These indicators and indices are an extension of the V-Trough modeling framework proposed by Arias-Rosales and Mejía-Gutiérrez [24]. Therefore, they are dependent on the same assumptions, namely, the optical performance is solely based on the solar beam radiation interactions and no temperature losses are considered.…”

“…Personalized V-Trough set-ups can be interactively explored and evaluated with "VTDesign", a generative software developed by Arias-Rosales and Mejía-Gutiérrez [23]. VTDesign is based on a computationally-inexpensive, yet flexible, geometrical and analytical model [24]. This model can be used to simulate the interactions between the V-Trough's elements and the solar beam radiation, which is typically taken as 90% of the global radiation on average [25].…”

“…Despite the simplicity of these devices, there is a vast amount of possible configurations of V-Trough dynamic geometries. Moreover, a V-Trough analytical model such as the one used by VTDesign [24] is not a continuous function, so it cannot be optimized with derivatives. Other simpler analytical models [26] could be optimized in such a way, but they lack the parametric flexibility needed for a broad exploration.…”

Formulation and simulation of a hybrid solar PV-wind generation system with photovoltaic concentration for non-interconnected areas to the energy grid

“…Low concentration systems are attractive to small scale applications as the potential increase in temperature has a small effect on the performance of the cell [15]. For this reason, VT devices with a concentration ratio ( ) below a value of 3 result in a significant cost-benefit rate for these systems [16]. Many of the models for PV and CPV systems use ray tracing methods, based on geometric optics [17] and comprise a wide variety of tools for the modelling of CPV systems [18] such as VTDesign® which is used here.…”

Evaluation of Direct Horizontal Irradiance in China Using a Physically-Based Model and Machine Learning Methods

“…Nevertheless, there has been some success in estimating direct radiation worldwide using various methods. For example, Bertrand [36] evaluated decomposition models of varying degrees of complexity to estimate direct solar irradiance from Meteosat second generation images over Belgium; Rosales [37] proposed an analytical and numerical model to simulate the interactions of direct solar radiation. Gueymard [38,39] compared four models (CPCR2, MLWT2, REST and Yang) and concluded that the newly developed MLWT2 model provides the best performance in all direct solar radiation estimation tests.…”