A Study of Environmental Impact

Assessment on the Performance of Solar

Photovoltaic Module

Sanhita Mishra, S. C. Swain, P. C. Panda and Ritesh Dash

Abstract In this paper, few experiments are conducted in a stand-alone PV system

and various current versus voltage and power versus voltage are drawn to study
different characteristics and one of them is verified through MATLAB/SIMULINK.
The performance of the system is calculated using battery connected load under both
AC and DC System. In this experimental work battery charging, discharging property
is also studied. Effect of different colour spectrum on solar PV panel is investigated.
How the partial shading and tilting of solar panel with some angle affect the output
power is clearly visible in the experimental work.

Keywords PV panel · Colour spectrum · Partial shading · Tilt angle · Batteries

1 Introduction

Solar irradiation without emitting greenhouse gases is good remedies for today’s
energy and environmental issue. As the fossil fuels are exhaustible and degrading
the environment, renewable source has become rightful nowadays [1, 2]. In this
paper, various tests are conducted for a stand-alone PV system set-up which exist
in energy system laboratory of KIIT University. A stand-alone PV system consists
of an adjustable PV panel, regulated lamps and a main controller with batteries.
The standard specification of the panel is PMPP  37 W and total cell  36, VOC
 21.8 V, ISC  2.4 A, VMPP  17.2 V and IMPP  2.20 A maximum irradiation
is 1000 W/m2 and standard temperature is 25°. Every time PV module absorbs a
wide range of radiation and its characteristic changes from morning to evening.
So experiments are conducted on solar panel to analyse the performance and its
properties can be studied briefly. As different colours have different wavelength and
solar light is combination of all colour visible spectrum, it is proved experimentally

S. Mishra (B) · S. C. Swain · P. C. Panda · R. Dash

School of Electrical Engineering, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, India
e-mail: sanhita.mishra@gmail.com

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 505

B. Pati et al. (eds.), Progress in Advanced Computing and Intelligent
Engineering, Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 713,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1708-8_46
506 S. Mishra et al.

that red colour has maximum power in comparison with purple colour. When the
panel is tilted with some angle away from the sun, then automatically maximum
power will be reduced which is verified in the experiment.

2 Different Types of Experiment on Solar Panel

2.1. A variable resistor, ammeter and a voltmeter are incorporated with the PV mod-
ule and irradiance has been measured using solar power meter and then the curve
was drawn to see the PMPP with different irradiance. Using MATLAB/Simulink, the
P–V and I–V property is verified for a single irradiance [3, 4]. The set-up used for
conducting the experiments is given below (Figs. 1, 2, 3 and 4).
2.2. A case study is conducted to verify effect of different colour filters in a solar
module. Considering two colour such as red and purple and also without any colour,
the properties are being studied. Normal sunlight consists of all colour of visible
spectrum [5]. As we know, energy of photon is E  hc/λ [6] where h is Plank’s
constant and λ is the wavelength of light. Wavelength of different colours greatly
affects photovoltaic module. The performance of solar PV panel is experimented by
exposing the panel to different color spectrum and their corresponding wavelength.
So it is seen from the graph that red colour has maximum current in comparison with
other but with normal sunlight the current is maximum (Figs. 5 and 6 ).
2.3. When the sunlight is incident on the solar panel, the output power is being
affected by the proper position of the panel. In this paper, experiment is being done
by considering different tilt angles. The panel is being tilted with 15°, 5° and 20°,
and it is investigated that more is the tilt angle of the panel away from the light less

Fig. 1 I–V characteristics 0.5

with different irradiance 818W/m2
0.45 450 W/m2
0.4 516W/m2
0.35
0.3
I in Amp

0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
0 10 20 30
V in Volts
A Study of Environmental Impact Assessment … 507

Fig. 2 P–V characteristics 8

with different irradiance
7
6

power in waƩ
5
4
818W/m2
3
450W/m2
2
516W/m2
1
0
0 5 10 15 20 25
voltage in volts

Fig. 3 I–V and P–V curves 40

from simulation
35

30

25 P-V CURVE

20

15

10 I-V CURVE

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Fig. 4 Set-up to conduct the

experiments
508 S. Mishra et al.

Fig. 5 P–V curve with 8

different colour spectrum
7

P in waƩ
4 red

3 purple

2 normal

0
0 5 10 15 20 25
V in volt

Fig. 6 P–V curve with 0.5

different colour spectrum
0.4
Current in AMP

0.3
RED
0.2
purple

0.1 normal

0
0 5 10 15 20 25
Voltage in Volts

current will be generated. Positioning a solar module is very difficult because earth
daily rotates round the sun. A solar module also could be mounted on a sun tracker
to follow the sun as it travels through the sky. So through this experiment it can be
concluded that tilt angle plays vital role for generating power in solar panel (Figs. 7
and 8).
2.4. Shading of solar panel affects the efficiency of solar panel because exposure
of sun towards solar panel decreases [7]. When shading is done in a solar cell, there
is a drop occurs in pumping electrons from one side to others. So fitting of bypass
diode helps in improving the efficiency. Here partial shading is done by making one
of the panels completely covered from two panels connected in series. Then, the
characteristic is studied and shown in the Fig. 9.
2.5. Stand-alone PV contains DC load and battery for storage purpose. Mainly
charge controller helps in controlling the module voltage. As test is conducted by
considering DC load of 420 Mega ohm, it is also concluded that array power  load
A Study of Environmental Impact Assessment … 509

Fig. 7 I–V characteristics 0.4 15

with different tilt angles 0.35 5
0.3 20

I in Amp
0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
0 5 10 15 20 25
V in Volts

Fig. 8 P–V characteristics 6

with different tilt angles 5 deg
20 deg
5 15 deg

4
power in waƩ

0
0 5 10 15 20 25
Voltage in volt

Fig. 9 I–V characteristic for 0.45

shading
0.4
0.35 normal
0.3 shading
I in amp

0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
0 10 20 30 40
V IN VOLTS
510 S. Mishra et al.

Table 1 P–V panel operated with no load

No. of Module Module Module Battery Battery Battery DC load DC load DC load
module current voltage power I/P I/P I/P power current voltage power
current voltage
2 0.16 A 28 4.48 7A 0.5 V 3.5 0.02 7.4 0.148

Fig. 10 Charging voltage 13

for storage device
12.5
VOLTAGE

Voltage in Volts
12

11.5

11

10.5

10
0 10 20 30 40 50
Ɵme in minute

Fig. 11 Charging current 0.18

i
for storage device 0.16
0.14
Current in Amp

0.12
0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0 10 20 30 40 50
Ɵme in minute

power + battery power + power loss by charge controller. If the battery power is
coming as negative, that means battery is discharging through load [8] (Table 1 ).
2.6. As battery is very important for solar model, it is also vital to improve the
performance of the battery and this battery performance depends on charging of
battery and the case study has been done to charge a 12 V battery and 4 methods of
battery charging method trickle charging, constant current charging, constant voltage
charging and float charging [9]. So in this experiment also the battery charging and
discharging property are observed. Figures 10 and 11 show the charging voltage and
current for a storage device. From Fig. 10, it can be found that charger takes 14 min
to boost the voltage up to 12.2 V, which is quite satisfactory in this case and that of
charging current is decreasing gradually from peak value towards zero magnitude
showing successful operation of charger battery system. Here the battery has 8.3 V
and it starts to discharge after 150 min continuous reading and it is shown that the
battery voltage is decreasing (Fig. 12 ).
A Study of Environmental Impact Assessment … 511

Fig. 12 Discharging voltage 8.35

of storage device 8.3
8.25

Voltage in Volts
8.2
8.15
8.1
8.05
8
7.95
7.9
7.85
0 50 100 150
Ɵme in min

3 Conclusion

Aim of this study is to find the effect of environmental parameters on the perfor-
mance of solar PV module. Being a promising energy in the world, it is affected
by many factors and hence affecting the reliability and efficiency of module. It is
usually affected by many factors such as dust, colour, irradiance and shading. In
this experiment, a storage device is connected at the input side for increasing the
performance under harsh environmental condition.

Acknowledgements Authors would like to thank the school of electrical engineering and KIIT
University for providing necessary laboratory facility and support to carry out the experiment.

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