Student TU Delft ontwikkelt ‘infotainment spot’ op zonne-energie

In the autonomous system, a flexible CIGS (copper-indium-gallium-selenide) module is deployed as an alternative to rigid silicon modules. Weeda used data from a weather station of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute (KNMI) to accurately estimate the amount of solar energy available in The Netherlands. The influence of the surroundings of the infotainment spot on the amount of all irradiance components was then accordingly investigated.
Furthermore, Weeda developed a methodology to make an accurate estimate of the solar irradiance on a curved surface. ‘Knowing the irradiance on the PV module, its power output was estimated by a PV model taking temperature, wind and irradiance effects into account. Consequently, the system topology was designed to have the smallest possible losses and highest yield of PV power.’

A load profile was developed in combination with the measurements of actual power consumption to simulate the system performance throughout the year. The study indicated that the meteorological data guarantees an average annual minimal horizontal irradiation of 1000 kWh/m2 in The Netherlands. With the temperature and irradiance effects taken into account, the energy production of the CIGS module, is 62 kWh/year. The load profile combined with performed power measurements claims an energy consumption of 19.3 kWh/year. So the PV module could annually produce roughly three times more energy than the load demand.

The 12-V DC system is completely autonomous, with a battery in which the excess energy is stored or made directly available with two ad-hoc USB ports to recharge a smartphone battery with solar energy. The system can be adjusted in terms of rated power of the PV module and the battery size if the infotainment spot is installed in a different location.