Engineering Commons^™

Performance And Economics Of Solar Inverters And Module Level Power Electronics In A 1 Mw Photovoltaic System, Maxwell Criswell

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Photovoltaic solar panels convert sunlight to electricity in the form of direct current; therefore, a necessary component of every photovoltaic system is an inverter to convert the electricity to usable alternating current. There are various commercially available inverter technologies manufactured today such as microinverters, string inverters, and central inverters, as well as module level power electronic devices such as DC optimizers that are capable of improving system performance in string and central inverter systems. This thesis compares the performance and economics of five different inverter and module level power electronic systems through model simulation using Helioscope software. The five alternatives …

Improving Pv Module Efficiency Through Cooling, Ashley Cox

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Solarbacks researched and designed a variety of cooling methods that could be used to improve the efficiency of photovoltaics. These cooling methods can be separated into two categories: active and passive methods. The active cooling method of hydraulic cooling and the passive cooling methods of heat sinks (fins), optical coatings, thermosyphons, phase change materials, and thermoelectric generators were all taken into consideration as potential cooling methods. Passive cooling methods were preferred because the use of electricity required for the cooling mechanism would reduce the net electricity and subsequent profit from the panels.

Two variations of hydraulic cooling were researched: …

Improving Pv Module Efficiency Through Cooling, Harrison Dawson

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Solarbacks researched and designed a variety of cooling methods that could be used to improve the efficiency of photovoltaics. These cooling methods can be separated into two categories: active and passive methods. The active cooling method of hydraulic cooling and the passive cooling methods of heat sinks (fins), optical coatings, thermosyphons, phase change materials, and thermoelectric generators were all taken into consideration as potential cooling methods. Passive cooling methods were preferred because the use of electricity required for the cooling mechanism would reduce the net electricity and subsequent profit from the panels.

Two variations of hydraulic cooling were researched: …

Reduction In Recombination Current Density In Boron Doped Silicon Using Atomic Hydrogen, Matthew Garett Young

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The solar industry has grown immensely in recent years and has reached a point where solar energy has now become inexpensive enough that it is starting to emerge as a mainstream electrical generation source. However, recent economic analysis has suggested that for solar to become a truly wide spread source of electricity, the costs still need to plummet by a factor of 8x. This demands new and innovative concepts to help lower such cost. In pursuit of this goal, this dissertation examines the use of atomic hydrogen to lessen the recombination current density in the boron doped region of n-type …

Top-Down Aluminum Induced Crystallization For Photovoltaics, Seth Daniel Shumate

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Passivating silicon solar cell surfaces is critical to fabricating very high efficiency and low cost photovoltaic devices. The sun-facing surface of the solar cell, known as the emitter, is particularly important when designing a solar cell. This work focused first on an alternative method of forming the emitter of silicon solar cells, and secondly on a method for improving the surface passivation of both these non-traditional and standard n-type solar cells.

Top-down aluminum induced crystallization (TAIC) was used for forming a polycrystalline silicon layer from amorphous silicon using aluminum to catalyze the crystallization at much lower temperatures than otherwise possible. …

Fabrication Of Vertical Silicon Nanowires Through Metal Assisted Deposition, Matthew Garett Young

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Controlled and ordered growth of Si nanowires through a low temperature fabrication method compatible with CMOS processing lines is a highly desirable replacement to future electronic fabrication technologies as well as a candidate for a low cost route to inexpensive photovoltaics. This stems from the fact that traditional CMOS based electronics are hitting physical barriers that are slowing the Moore's Law trend as well as the demand for an inexpensive solar cell technology that can obtain grid parity. A fractional factorial growth study is presented that compares the growth of Au and Al catalyzed Si nanowires at temperatures ranging from …