pre022 - Solar Energy

180 h

After successful completion of the module students should be able to:

This module gives an overview on renewable energy heat and photovoltaic technologies. Main focus hereby are the scientific principles of components and their technical description as well as first suitable system performance assessment methods.

 Photovoltaics (Lecture - 90 h workload)

• Basic and most important properties of solar radiation related to photovoltaics
• PV cells basics: Fundamental physical processes in photovoltaic materials
• Characterization and basic modelling of solar cells
• Component Description: PV generator; Charge controller; Inverter;
• Balance of system components; System Description
• Grid Connected System
• Stand Alone System

Renewable Energy Heat (Seminar & Exercises: 90 h workload)

• Assessment of solar thermal ambient parameters: regional global, diffuse, reflected solar radiation on horizontal and on tilted plane, ambient temperature
• Solar thermal system components: collectors; heat exchangers; thermal storage; thermal driven compression chillers
• Solar cooling systems and components
• Heat pumps and chillers for space heating and cooling supply
• Characterization of solar thermal and heat pump systems, their operation and performance
• F-Chart and Utilizability methods as main methods for assessing solar system performance
• Parametrization methods for heat pump assessment.

Solar Energy PV

• Green, Martin A., 1981: Solar cells : operating principles, technology and system applications,           Prentice Hall.
•  Green, M.A., 2007: Third Generation Photovoltaics, Advanced Solar
• Energy Conversion
• Springer Series in Photonics
• Markvart, Tom and Castaner, Luis, 2003: Practical Handbook of Photovoltaics, Fundamentals and Applications, Elsevier Science
• Nelson, Jenny, 2003: The Physics of Solar Cells (Properties of Semiconductor Materials), Imperial College Press.
• Stuart R. Wenham, Martin A. Green, Muriel E. Watt& Richard Corkish (Edit.), 2007: Applied Photovoltaics, Earthscan Publications Ltd.;
• Twidell, John & Weir, Toni, 2005: Renewable Energy Resources Taylor & Francis.

Renewable Energy Heat

• DGS, (2010) Planning and installing solar thermal systems, a guide for installers, architects and engineers, 2nd ed.
• Duffie JA, Beckman WA (2013) Solar engineering of thermal processes: Wiley.
• Henning H-M. 2007. Solar assisted air conditioning of buildings - an overview. Applied
• Thermal Engineering 27(10):1734-1749; DOI:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2006.07.021

At the end of the lecture period; submission of the report at the end of the semester

2 Examinations: Written Exam (1.5h, weight 50%) and Presentation of a Paper (10 min presentation, 5 pages report, weight 50%)