Design and Development of Environmental chamber for solar cell testing

Abstract

In this research work a lightweight compact and portable chamber is designed and developed for testing of solar cell behavior at various temperatures. This chamber is used for testing of the solar cell at both positive and negative temperature. Cold finger design was used for producing localized cold surface at the flat surface on which solar cell is to be mounted. Inside the chamber, a controlled environment is produced by a solar cell, i.e. controlled the temperature so that we can test the output performance of solar cell at desired temperature within a specific temperature range. Proper control and instrumentation of the chamber were carried out using data acquisition cards (DAQ) of National Instruments (NI) using LabVIEW software through PID control. Preliminary tests were calibration and repeatability of temperature and voltage measurement.