Development of a Simple and Cheap Equipment for monitoring the solar Irradiance on PV modules.

Abstract: Increased use of renewable energies that is taking place all over the world is having a very important impact on the photovoltaic solar energy industry. This means of obtaining electrical energy is one of the most promising ones nowadays, thanks to the fact that it is a technology of easy installation and maintenance. However, the number of hours that a photovoltaic system works at maximum power depends almost entirely on environmental conditions, mainly in terms of solar irradiance.Solar irradiance is a magnitude that measures the power released by sunlight per unit area; the higher it is, the more power the photovoltaic system will generate.Therefore, it is very important to measure this magnitude in order to obtain data that either can give information about which is the best place to install a photovoltaic system or expect the device performance.Unfortunately, sensors used nowadays to measure this magnitude are quite expensive. The most widely used are the so-called pyranometers, with an average cost of between 8000 SEK to 10000 SEK, and solar reference cells, which can be quite cheaper (1000 SEK), but also can be the most expensive devices on the market depending on the features they have (some reference cells cost 20000 SEK).In this thesis, a solar irradiance sensor based on the treatment of a current generated by a silicon photodiode has been designed, built and calibrated. The signal generated by the device is a voltage that has been obtained by means of a current-to-voltage converter amplifier stage. Once the construction of the circuit was completed, it was tested on the roof of Hall 45 located in the University of Gävle. The testing was carried out on 13, 14 and 15 May 2019, and it consisted in the comparison of the signal generated by the new device and the signals generated by a pyranometer and a solar cell.The result is a device priced at 200 SEK, which shows acceptable levels of accuracy during central daylight hours but shows a strong angular dependence on incident light during sunrise and sunset.