Investigation of solar tracking performance using isotropic and anisotropic models

ABSTRACT

This work presents a study in the theoretical and experimental performance of PV cells and tracking surfaces using the isotropic and anisotropic (HDKR) models’ simulations for single and dual axis systems. The solar spatial and temporal coordinates are obtained for the experiment site during Julian days throughout the year. From there, further simulations are performed using Typical Meteorological Year (TMY) data to evaluate various incident irradiance parameters on tracking surfaces. Experiments with different systems including fixed, single-axis, and dual-axis systems are conducted and compared with simulation results. The simulation outcomes show a gain in PV power generation of around 6% in the anisotropic system compared to the isotropic model prototype. However, experiments show no difference between both models in dual-axis trackers. By using TMY data for optimization of tracking angles, the dual-axis trackers performance gain is 8.5% in PV power generation compared to single-axis system, and a 37% gain is observed compared to fixed-tilted PV cell. Finally, the tracking systems’ optimized angles are not a function of the model used (isotropic/anisotropic) during summer months.

KEYWORDS:

• Solar tracking
• isotropic model
• anisotropic model
• single axis
• dual axis
• system performance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work is funded by the Deanship of Research at Jordan University of Science and Technology [grant number 20150339].