Modeling Solar Cells Operating at Waste Light

Abstract

The article concerns the investigations of solar cells irradiated by waste light. The measurement method and instruments used are presented. Using this method, the spectra of the light emitted by different light sources are presented and the results of measurements of sensitivity characteristics of the selected solar cell are shown. On the basis of the obtained results of the measurements, a new model of a solar cell dedicated for SPICE is formulated. In this model, an influence of spectrum characteristics of the modeled solar cell on its photocurrent is taken into account. The correctness of this model is verified experimentally for all the considered lighting sources. It is proved that photocurrent is the highest for irradiation using a classical bulb, whereas it is the lowest for a fluorescent lamp.

Design and evaluation of a low-cost solar simulator and measurement system for low-power photovoltaic panels

“…The irradiator consists of halogen bulbs that had been proven to have the best spectrum to imitate the sunlight, among other light sources [1]. The irradiator can emit light with the maximum irradiance of 1000 W/m 2 , which complies with the standard test conditions, and thus can be used to evaluate photovoltaic panels for the maximum power available during the day.…”

“…Some designs of solar simulators can be found in the literature [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. In [1] authors measured the spectra of a few light sources and came up with a conclusion that incandescent and halogen bulbs emit light that is comparable to the sunlight spectrum. Moreover, these bulbs produce light in which the most of the energy is in the range of the monocrystal and polycrystal PV panels sensitivity and therefore they are the best choice as regards illuminating PV panels.…”

“…The problem of energy production, especially the so-called green energy, has been emphasised over the last few years. A fair amount of papers focuses on photovoltaic (PV) panels as one of the green energy sources that do not cause any pollution, do not generate any noise, and that can be utilized for energy harvesting on a small scale -such as powering small devices using solar cells operating at the waste light [1]. A lot of research on PV panels concerns their electrical characteristics as well as maximum power point tracking algorithms [2][3][4][5][6][7][8].…”

“…A solution to overcome the problems would be using a commercial solar simulator. However, such devices are expensive and a large part of their spectrum does not contribute to the total output power of a PV panel due to its spectrum sensitivity [1]. Therefore, many researchers have searched for an alternative and designed their own solar simulators using different types of light sources to evaluate PV panels and maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithms under stable and controlled conditions.…”

“…Additionally, there exist mixed solar simulators which utilize both LEDs and halogen lamps [19,20], but the cost of such simulators is correspondingly higher. Basically, halogen lamps are commonly used because of their low cost and light spectrum which does not contain significant spikes and is similar to the spectral response of a solar cell [1,21,22].…”