Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2023
27th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
TRANSIENT THERMAL-ELECTRICAL MODEL FOR SIMULATING A PHOTOVOLTAIC MODULE
Submission Author:
Fabiano Cordeiro Cavalcanti , PB
Co-Authors:
Thaís de Vasconcelos Silva, Fabiano Cordeiro Cavalcanti, Cristiane Kelly Ferreira da Silva, Gilberto Augusto Amado Moreira
Presenter: Fabiano Cordeiro Cavalcanti
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2023.COB2023-0135
Abstract
The exploitation of renewable energy sources has proven to be a viable solution for society in reducing its dependence on fossil fuels. As a consequence, the use of photovoltaic modules has grown strongly in recent years. It is known that the efficiency of converting solar energy into electricity in silicon-based photovoltaic modules can be affected by various factors, with the operating temperature of the photovoltaic cell being one of the most important. This work aims to develop a transient thermal-electric model of a photovoltaic module that enables the simulation of different modules under different operating conditions. The proposed modeling is based on a multi-physics perspective, which considers both the thermal and electrical phenomena involved in the photovoltaic generation of electricity. The adopted thermal model is one-dimensional and in transient heat transfer regime. It considers heat conduction through the thicknesses of the different layers of the materials that make up the module, thermal generation in the photovoltaic cells and glass, and radiative and convective heat exchanges that occur on the upper and lower surfaces of the module. Its numerical solution occurs via the finite difference method, with an implicit time scheme. The electrical model is based on a circuit composed of a practical diode, with a series resistance and another parallel one representing, respectively, the leakage current and the structural losses of the photovoltaic module. The solution of the transient thermal model is coupled with the electrical model, constituting the thermal-electrical model. The coupling between the two models occurs through a computational algorithm performed in MATLAB software. From the resolution of the transient thermal-electric model proposed in this work, the temperatures of the photovoltaic cell were calculated over simulated days. These results are compared to those calculated via other models available in the literature. In fact, if faced with an essentially thermal model of a photovoltaic module, the proposed thermal-electric model has the advantage of taking into account both the thermophysical and geometric parameters of the module as well as its electrical characteristics.
Keywords
photovoltaic module, thermal model, electrical model, Photovoltaic efficiency
