Teaching fundamentals of photovoltaic array performance with simulation tools

Abstract

This paper presents a course module containing exercises based on simulation tools that can be used to efficiently educate Electrical and Electronic Engineering undergraduate students on the electrical behavior of solar cells and photovoltaic arrays. This module is taught as part of the ''Alternative Energy Sources'' course added to the curriculum of the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Educators Department of ASPETE in 2013. The concept is to offer our undergraduate students the opportunity to deeply understand the electrical behavior of solar cells and photovoltaics by virtually experimenting with individual solar cells and photovoltaic arrays creating their necessary models in the popular platform of MULTISIM (the simulator from National Instruments). This is important for the success of the learning process of this course, which is not accompanied with a real-world laboratory that would be expensive to implement.

El software como apoyo didáctico en la enseñanza de la electrónica digital en la educación superior en México [Software as a didactic support in the teaching of digital electronics in higher education in Mexico]

“…A partir del análisis documental llevado a cabo, el presente estudio mostró que el uso del software de simulación es de gran ayuda en la educación, presencial y distancia (Basri & Siam, 2018;Bojović et al, 2020;Farid et al, 2018;Laeeq & Memon, 2018;(Romero-Rodriguez et al, 2020). Entre las herramientas de simulación, en el ámbito de la ingeniería electrónica, las más usadas para implementación de circuitos son: Multisim, Proteus y Labview (Asparuhova et al, 2018;Dak et al, 2018;Kavianpour, 2019;Lilyanova, 2019;Marianoga & Palczynska, 2018;Srikanth et al, 2019;Tortoreli et al, 2017); Tanto Multisim como Proteus, permiten el desarrollo de diversas prácticas de laboratorio y analizar los resultados de las mismas. Con el análisis realizado, se observó que la aplicación de estos dos softwares está enfocada en la realización de simulaciones específicas, sin embargo, no se establece un análisis para el acompañamiento de una materia en particular.…”

The Importance of Introducing the OCTC Method to Undergraduate Students as a Tool for Circuit Analysis and Amplifier Design

“…Here we present two practical examples which were given as homework problems. Students were asked to solve the two problems analytically with the classical way, by hand (as exam problems) and to simulate the two circuits using LTspice, comparing the simulation results with the theoretical results [7][8][9][10]. For the problems, the BJT parasitic capacitances computation formula was given:…”

“…In this section, the students' performance on homework problems, sampling test, final exams and quantitative evaluation are discussed [8,10,12,13]. Out of the 115 students, 82 (70%) answered Problem 1 correctly.…”

Design, Description, Implementation and Assessment of a Multimedia Application with Simulations for Teaching Models of Light

“…Main characteristics of the proposed teaching method are: a) scientific models transformed to educational models, b) simulations / visualizations, c) hands-on experiments in order to study phenomena concerning the nature of light, d) web-based environment [10]- [13]. The didactical approach which developed consists of seven (7) units: 1.…”

“…This software application supports the didactical approach to models of light providing a learning way that is flexible with relative adaptation to each student's individual study rhythm [8], [9], [13].…”