DESCRIPTION

Technical Description

Illuminance, temperature and electrical load are the key variables affecting photovoltaic solar cells. ET 252 allows you to conduct targeted experiments in order to understand the basic principles and practically relevant effects on cells and modules.

Four solar cells are illuminated by a lamp field with adjustable illuminance. They can be precisely maintained at a selectable set temperature thanks to a regulated Peltier module. Using the set of cables provided, the cells can be interconnected in a number of ways, via a patch panel. For example, individual cells can be bridged by bypass diodes in order to examine differences in power loss such as caused by shaded cells.

A rheostat is integrated into the patch panel to manually record current-voltage curves. Current and voltage measurements are detected via the built-in measuring unit. Automated measurements can be taken by software by specifying electrical load patterns.

Illuminance, current, voltage and temperature are all detected by corresponding sensors and can be displayed and logged in the software program. 

The software also includes a comprehensive tutorial feature. This feature allows individual learning objectives to be reviewed by an automatically generated selection of various test questions and exercises.

The well-structured instructional material sets out the basic principles and provides a step-by-step guide through the experiments.

Learning Objectives / Experiments

- physical behaviour of solar cells under varying illuminance and temperature 
- recording of current-voltage curves
- calculating current strength and achievable output based on the single diode model
- how illuminance and temperature affect the curves
- Interconnecting solar cells in parallel and series connection
- effect of bypass diodes
- power degradation due to shading