Design and implementation of an experiment setup on solar electricity

Abstract

PV module price has fallen 75% to below $1/w since 2008. There are over 17,500 MW of cumulative solar electric capacity operating in the U.S., enough to power more than 3.5 million average American homes, 36%, over 49,000 installations, of all new electric capacity is from solar in 2014. It means that a new solar project has been installed every 3 minutes. The growth of solar industry boosts the economy and creates 174,000 jobs in the U.S. As a part of PV system, module-level, string, and central power electronics are well developed and the market for global PV micro-inverters and power optimizers will more than triple in the coming years, rising to more than $1 billion in 2018. In order to train the workforce to meet the future demand, solar-energy related courses are developed at the University of Bridgeport. One course, Sustainable Energy lab, was offered to facilitate the education in renewable energy. One of experiments is focused on the PV system and it consists of solar position calculation, site survey, VI curve measurements, buck-booster converter and energy storage. Finally, a stand-alone PV system, is setup to deliver DC and AC power to the loads. Through this experiment, the students are expected to understand the working principles of the PV system and the function of each component.