Design and fabrication of a solar simulator

Abstract

Solar simulator for evaluating efficiency and power output of photo voltaic (PV) cells with rise in temperature, has been designed and fabricated. Solar simulator is capable enough to provide the necessary and required conditions for testing of single mono crystalline silicon (40mm x 40 mm) PV cell. Light source, concentrator, flux measurement system, light spectrometer and PV cell curve tracer are main components of solar simulator. Metal halide lamp has been used in this simulator to provide the light matched to sun light. Ellipsoidal reflector as a concentrator has been designed based on laws of reflection and optical performance parameters .It ensured homogeneous distribution of minimum light intensity of 1000W/m2 and maximum of 1800W/m2 at targeted area. Intensity at targeted area was measured by performing calorimetric experiments on aluminum 1100 plate (4cm x 4cm) integrated with engineering designed flux measuring system (FSM).Commercial spectrometer has been utilized to make comparison of spectrum of sun light and simulator. Results show that how close are both spectrums. PV cell curve tracer of solar simulator plots the power output and current-voltage curves of PV cell by interfacing electrical circuit devices with Arduino thus make it easy to quantify the performance effectively. In this way all desired objectives of simulator has been achieved successfully. Simulator has also capability to provide suitable setup and enough space to incorporate cooling mechanism on PV cell and perform study for increase in efficiency and power output .In this way along with primary testing of PV cells, advance studies can also be done with help of this simulator. Moreover the high flux output can be put into use by performing experiments related to concentrated energy phenomenon such as chemical reactions, optical melting of salts, and thermal degradation of materials.