 Feasibility of solar tracking systems for PV panels in hot and cold regionsS.A. Sharaf Eldin, M.S. Abd-Elhady and H.A. Kandil Renewable Energy, 2016, vol. 85, issue C, 228-233 Abstract: Solar tracking systems would probably increase the efficiency of a PV module, but when and where. There are many factors that affect the performance of PV panels, especially crystalline silicon panels, e.g. overheating due to excessive exposure to solar irradiance in a hot climate as in Sunbelt countries. So, it could be the case that a tracking system is not necessary for a Sunbelt country. The objective of this research is to determine mathematically the performance of a PV panel as a function of tracking the sun and the operating conditions. The used mathematical model is validated experimentally and then applied for several environments, i.e. hot as well as cold regions. It has been found that the gain in electrical energy from tracking the sun is about 39% in case of a cold city as Berlin, Germany. While the gain in energy does not exceed 8% in case of a hot city as Aswan, Egypt, due to overheating of the PV panels. However, if the energy needed for running the tracking system, which ranges from 5% to 10% of the energy generated, is included in this analysis then tracking the sun will not be feasible in hot countries. Keywords: Solar tracking; Feasibility; Photovoltaic; PV panels (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:85:y:2016:i:c:p:228-233 DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2015.06.051 Access Statistics for this article Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier |
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