Showing papers in "Solar Energy in 2011"

TL;DR: In this paper, the technical progress made in the past several years in the area of mono- and polycrystalline thin-film photovoltaic (PV) technologies based on Si, III-V, II-VI, and I-III-VI2 semiconductors, as well as nano-PV.

TL;DR: In this paper, a short and simple overview of dye-sensitized solar cell technology from the working principles to the first commercial applications is given, emphasizing the role of the sensitizer and strategies to improve the performances of the dye as well as some recent development aiming to answer specific issues.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the actual state of the art on the development and the assessment of cool materials (i.e., materials with high solar reflectance and infrared emittance) for buildings and urban structures.

TL;DR: In this paper, a method for intra-hour, sub-kilometer cloud forecasting and irradiance nowcasting using a ground-based sky imager at the University of California, San Diego is presented.

TL;DR: A chronological review of the volumetric receivers of most interest for electricity production, identifying their different configurations, materials and real and expected results, and pointing out their main advantages and conclusions based on the multitude of international and national projects reports and references.

TL;DR: An advanced statistical method for solar power forecasting based on artificial intelligence techniques that can be well trained to improve the forecast accuracy and is suitable for operational planning of transmission system operator and for PV power system operators trading in electricity markets.

TL;DR: A review on the technological developments in each of the essential ingredients that may support the future integration of successful NZEB/PEB, i.e. accurate simulation models, sensors and actuators and last but not least the building optimization and control are presented.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe material and energy flows in four commercial PV technologies, i.e., mono-crystalline silicon, multi-crystaline silicon (MCS), ribbon-silicon, and cadmium telluride.

TL;DR: A new two-diode model is utilized to represent the PV cell in a comprehensive MATLAB Simulink simulator for photovoltaic (PV) system that supports a large array combination that can be interfaced to MPPT algorithms and power electronic converters.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe the design of a solar organic Rankine cycle being installed in Lesotho for rural electrification purpose, which consists of parabolic trough solar thermal collectors, a storages tank, and a small-scale ORC engine using scroll expanders.

TL;DR: An improved modeling approach using differential evolution (DE) method, which enables the computation of model parameters at any irradiance and temperature point using only the information provided by the manufacturer’s data sheet is proposed.

TL;DR: Mathiesen et al. as discussed by the authors evaluated the numerical weather prediction for intra-day solar forecasting in the continental United States using SURFRAD ground measurement data and found that the NAM and GFS models are generally the most accurate tools for forecasting solar irradiation several hours in advance.

TL;DR: A deterministic algorithm makes use of a list of commercially available system devices to suggest the optimal number and type of units ensuring that the total cost of the system is minimized while guaranteeing the availability of the energy.

TL;DR: Findings of PV plant evaluations carried out during last years are presented, showing the possible degradation of PV modules and hidden manufacturing defects.

TL;DR: In this article, a review of recent research in Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) is presented with the emphases on a range of key systems whose improvement would be likely to lead to improved solar energy conversion efficiency and/or economic viability.

TL;DR: A novel hybrid model that combines both the ARMA and TDNN, is applied to produce better prediction of the hourly solar radiation series and shows that this hybrid model can take the advantages of both ARMAand TDNN and give excellent result.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors developed and validated a medium-term solar irradiance forecasting model by adopting predicted meteorological variables from the US National Weather Service's (NWS) forecasting database as inputs to an ANN model.

TL;DR: In this article, a simulation model that reproduces the performance of parabolic trough solar thermal power plants with a thermal storage system is presented to facilitate the prediction of the electricity output of these plants during the various stages of their planning, design, construction and operation.

TL;DR: Results show the relationship between the electricity flows and the storage capacity, which is not linear and becomes an important design criterion.

TL;DR: A new application of pattern search optimization technique for estimating the parameters of solar cell and PV module is introduced in this article, where the estimated parameters are the generated photocurrent, saturation current, series resistance, shunt resistance and ideality factor.

TL;DR: In this article, a three-part storage system is proposed where a phase change material (PCM) storage will be deployed for the two-phase evaporation, while concrete storage is used for storing sensible heat.

TL;DR: The near optimum design for membership functions and control rules were found simultaneously by genetic algorithms (GAs) which are search algorithms based on the mechanism of natural selection and genetics which are easy to implement and efficient for multivariable optimization problems such as in fuzzy controller design.

TL;DR: In this paper, a review of colloidal quantum dot solar cells is presented, where the authors discuss the preparation methods, working concepts, advantages and disadvantages of different device architectures, including Schottky solar cells, depleted heterojunction solar cells and extremely thin absorber solar cells.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors quantified the potential of dynamic solar shading facade components by using integrated simulations that took energy demand, the indoor air quality, the amount of daylight available, and visual comfort into consideration.

TL;DR: A simple explicit photovoltaic formulation for characterizing and dimensioning cell-arrays is presented, which permits the shortcircuit current, the open-circuit voltage, the maximum cell power and the optimum cell-operation conditions to be determined.

TL;DR: In this article, the macroscopic temperature distribution of the fluid and solid phases in volumetric solar air receivers is analyzed, and the effects of velocity, porosity, mean cell size and the thermal conductivity of the solid phase on the temperature fields are analyzed.

TL;DR: In this article, the design of a single glazed flat plate photovoltaic-thermal (PV-T) solar collector is discussed, focusing on the heat transfer between PV cells and fluid, and also on optical properties of materials.

TL;DR: The first on sun test was carried out on 29 June 2009 as discussed by the authors, with a 500m 2 concentrator with 13.4m focal length and altitude-azimuth tracking.

TL;DR: In this paper, an experimental research is presented on a new use of Phase Change Materials (PCMs) in concrete floors, in which thermal energy provided by the sun is stored in a mix of concrete and PCMs.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors evaluated the impact of the modified urban morphology on energy consumption in tropical climate of Singapore and found that green plot ratio (GnPR) was the most significant factor in reducing the temperature by up to 2°C.