Row Spacing As a Controller of Solar Module Temperature and Power Output in Solar Farms
Sponsor
Funding provided by U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office.
Published In
Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy
Document Type
Citation
Publication Date
11-1-2022
Abstract
When the temperature of solar photovoltaic modules rises, efficiency drops and module degradation accelerates. The spatial arrangement of solar modules can affect convective cooling and, consequently, module temperatures. However, the impact of row spacing on convective cooling in realistic solar farms has not yet been studied. Here, we develop six solar farm arrangements consisting of a fixed number of rows with varying streamwise row spacing. We model the flow and heat transfer of each solar farm using high-resolution large-eddy simulations. Results indicate that increasing row spacing can enhance convective cooling by 14.8%, which reduces module temperature by 6.6 °C and increases power output by 4.0% on average.
Rights
Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, American Institute of Physics
Locate the Document
DOI
10.1063/5.0123641
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/39626
Citation Details
Brooke J. Stanislawski, Todd Harman, Timothy J. Silverman, Raúl Bayoán Cal, and Marc Calaf , "Row spacing as a controller of solar module temperature and power output in solar farms", Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy 14, 063702 (2022) https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0123641