Adaptive Solar Panel

8/3/2019 Adaptive Solar Panel

1/20

ADAPTIVE SOLAR

PANEL

Sohrab Sheikhani ( 88104208 )

Morteza Toopchi ( 88104724 )

1

Thursday, January 19, 12


2/20

ENERGY FROM THESUN

2



3/20

Energy from the Sun

The Earth receives 174petawatts(PW) of incoming solar radiation at the upperatmosphere. Approximately 30% is reflected back to space while the rest is absorbed by

clouds, oceans and land masses. The spectrum of solar light at the Earth's surface is

mostly spread across the visible and near-infrared ranges with a small part in the near-

ultraviolet.

The total solar energy absorbed by Earth's atmosphere, oceans and land masses is

approximately 3,850,000exajoules (EJ) per year. In 2002, this was more energy in onehour than the world used in one year. Photosynthesis captures approximately 3,000EJper year in biomass. The amount of solar energy reaching the surface of the planet is

so vast that in one year it is about twice as much as will ever be obtained from all of

the Earth's non-renewable resources of coal, oil, natural gas, and mined uraniumcombined. The major problem with solar panel technology is that the efficiencies forsolar power systems are still poor and the costs per kilo-watt-hour (KWH) are not

competitive, in most cases, to compete with petroleum energy sources.

Solar energy can be harnessed in different levels around the world. Depending on a

geographical location the closer to the equator the more "potential" solar energy is

available.Solar power is an alternative technology that will hopefully lead us away from

our petroleum dependent energy sources.

3



4/20

SOLAR ENERGYHow We Obtain it ?

4



5/20

Solar power

Solar power is the conversion of sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics

(PV), or indirectly using concentrated solar power (CSP). CSP systems use lenses or

mirrors and tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight into a small beam. PV

converts light into electric current using the photoelectric effect.

CSPSolar Farm

5



6/20

PHOTOVOLTAICSA solar cell, or photovoltaic cell (PV), is a device that converts light into electric current

using the photoelectric effect. The first solar cell was constructed by Charles Frittsin the1880s. In 1931 a German engineer, Dr Bruno Lange, developed a photo cell using silver

selenide in place of copper oxide. Although the prototype selenium cells converted less

than 1% of incident light into electricity, both Ernst Werner von Siemens and James Clerk

Maxwell recognized the importance of this discovery. Following the work of Russell Ohl in

the 1940s, researchers Gerald Pearson, Calvin Fuller and Daryl Chapin created the

silicon solar cell in 1954. These early solar cells cost 286USD/watt and reachedefficiencies of 4.56% now its as cheap as 4 USD/watt with a better efficiency.* Our project is based on this type of solar energy generators.

6



7/20

CONCENTRATED SOLAR

POWERConcentrating Solar Power (CSP) systems use lenses or mirrors and tracking systems to

focus a large area of sunlight into a small beam. The concentrated heat is then used as a

heat source for a conventional power plant. A wide range of concentrating technologies

exists; the most developed are the parabolic trough, the concentrating linear fresnel

reflector, the Stirling dish and the solar power tower. Various techniques are used to track

the Sun and focus light. In all of these systems a working fluid is heated by the

concentrated sunlight, and is then used for power generation or energy storage.

7



8/20

A DEEPER LOOK INTOPHOTOVOLTAICS

8



9/20

SOLAR CELLS

Today solar panels are made of semi-conductor materials such as silicon.The electrons

in the semiconductor material will only jump into the conduction band if they absorb a

photon. The photons can either be absorbed, reflected, or can even pass right through

the semiconductor. In order to increase the number of photons absorbed ultimately

increasing the efficiency of the solar panel, the percentage of photons that pass throughand reflected must be reduced. There is an obvious loss of electric potential when the

photons are reflected off the semiconductor material. To reduce the percentage of

reflected photons, an anti-reflective coating is usually put on the semiconductor, which

will decrease the number of reflected photons increasing the total number of photons that

will become absorbed.

9



10/20

SOLAR CELLS

The photons in sunlight have a wide variety of different wavelengths causing some to

pass right through. The photons that pass through the semiconductor have energy lower

than the band gap energy of the semiconductor. As a result, these photons do not

contain enough energy to create an electron-hole pair, so the photon just passes right

through the semiconductor.However, if the photon has an excess of energy, meaning itgives the electron more energy than the band gap, than this excess will be emitted as a

form heat and the electron will settle down in the conduction band. To minimize the

amount of photons that pass through the semiconductor, some semiconductors are

manufactured with many layers, each having a different band gaps in order to better

match the light spectrum.

10



11/20

VOLTAGE-CURRENTCHARACTERISTICS ( V-I )

11



12/20

VOLTAGE-CURRENT

CHARACTERISTICS V-I

12



13/20

VOLTAGE-CURRENT

CHARACTERISTICS V-I

13



14/20

14

VOLTAGE-CURRENT

CHARACTERISTICS V-I



15/20

15

WHAT WE USED IN THE

CIRCUIT

L298 Motor Driver

ATMega 32Thursday, January 19, 12


16/20

16

WHAT WE USED IN THE

CIRCUIT

5 IR-Sensors Capacitor Bunch of Wires



17/20

17

WHAT WE USED IN THE

CIRCUIT

+

C++ AVRProgramming

AVR Programmer

+



18/20

WHAT WE DESIGNED !?

18



19/20

19

WHAT OUR DESIGN REALLY

LOOKED LIKE !



20/20

THANKS FOR YOURATTENTION

20


Adaptive Solar Panel

Documents