2016 Al-Sadeq International Conference on Multidisciplinary in IT and Communication Science and

Applications (AIC-MITCSA) – IRAQ (9-10) May

Design Optimization of Solar Power System with respect to

Temperature and Sun Tracking

Dr. Amer Mejbel Ali¹, Dr. Sameer Saadoon Mustafa², Ali Hilal Mutlag³

¹ Al-Mustansiryah University, Iraq, dramerma@uomustansiriyah.edu.iq

² Al-Kitab University College, ,Iraq , sameersaadoon@yahoo.com
³ Kirkuk Technical College, Iraq, al33hl@yahoo.com

Abstract

Solar panels work best in certain weather conditions, but the weather is changing always, so most panels do not operate under ideal
conditions. Design optimization of photovoltaic (PV) modules with changing in the environmental parameters, such as solar irradiance
and temperature is presented in this work for Kirkuk city based on HOMER software. Our system consists of series-parallel
combination of solar PV panels, maximum power point tracking controller (MPPT), batteries and converter. Four case studies using
different types of sun tracking systems considering temperature effects were presented. The optimum system design which has the
minimum cost of energy (COE) and total net present cost (NPC) was achieved when we adopt two-axis tracking system. Both NPC and
COE were found inversely proportion with temperature coefficient of power, and direct proportion with operating cell temperature.

Index Terms —HOMER, photovoltaic, sun tracking systems, renewable energy.

I. INTRODUCTION the solar system efficiency, the maximum power point

Renewable energy sources like solar energy play an
important role in electricity generation due to energy
increasing demand, associated with the depletion of fossil fuel
and the environmental problems linked with the use of fossil
fuel. These effects make the deployment of alternative
renewable energies impressive and attractive. Solar energy is
the best option for electricity generation as it is available
everywhere. Solar isolation, shading and temperature are
effect on the performance of photovoltaic array and this will
be result in the maximum power point (MPP) displacement.
The amount of sunlight received by any surface on earth
depends on several factors including; geographical location,
season, local landscape, time of the day and local weather [1,
2]. However the cost of electricity from PV is still higher
than from the conventional power generation. Solar PV
system performance depends upon individual solar cell VI
characteristic with respect to input conditions (temperature
and humidity). Solar cell efficiency drops with the increasing
in temperature [3-6]. It was observed that solar-electric
energy demand has increased considerably about 25%
annually over the past 20 years. This was mainly because of
the decreasing costs and prices [7]. Many studies related to
the direction of maximum solar irradiance, temperature,
shading, displacement of MPP and tilt angle issue were taken
for the evaluation of power performance. The random
variation in the output voltage and current of the solar PV
panel is due to the fact that it depends on the solar radiation
levels and the operating temperature conditions. To improve
tracking methods are required to fully utilize it with power
devices associated with the system. The system is forced by
these methods to operate on its optimal conditions with the
environment factors variation [9-12]. Different methods to
increase the efficiency of solar power generation and to make
it more cost effective have been studied during the past years.
Sun tracking systems move the solar panel on hourly bases
and seasonal movement of the sun in order to absorb the
highest possible amount of energy which can boost the total
collected energy from sun. The sun-tracking systems used
could be single or double axis [13].
II. SYSTEM CONFIGURATION WITH HOMER
HOMER is micro power optimization software developed
by Mistaya Engineering, Canada for the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory (NREL) USA, to simplify the task of
evaluating designs of both grid-connected and off-grid power
systems for various applications. Many decisions about the
configuration of the system are to be made in designing a
power system like, the components to be included, size of
each component, etc. The variation in technology costs, large
number of technology options and the variation in technology
costs and availability of energy resources make these
decisions difficult. HOMER's sensitivity, optimization and
analysis algorithms make it easier to evaluate many possible
system configurations [14].

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 2016 Al-Sadeq International Conference on Multidisciplinary in IT and Communication Science and
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III. LOAD PROFILE V. SYSTEM EQUPMENT CONFIGURATION

The load profile for this work is shown in figure 1, is based
on a hypothetical apartment. The total daily load average is
31.8 kWh.The system components were designed according
to load profile. This study concentrate on solar panels
calculations, cell temperature and environment temperature
effects on the solar system.
The considered system equipments are shown in figure 3,
which include load, photovoltaic solar cells, converter and
battery bank. These equipements were connected to provide
the load with continuous energy.Solar panels and batteries are
connected to DC busbar, converters are connected to both AC
and DC busbars ,while the load is connected to AC busbar.

FIG. 3 The system equipments considered in the design

A. Batteries Specifications
FIG.1 The load profile
Batteries are needed to provide the load with energy during
IV. SOLAR RESOURCE PROFILE the night. The Surrette4ks25p battery series was chosen in our
system. It has a nominal voltage of 4Volts and nominal
HOMER software allows getting solar energy data and capacity of 1900Ah (2.4 kWh). Each string consists of 3
loading them from files. Also data can be loaded from NASA batteries in series to get 12V DC, the string are connected in
web site by pressing (Get Data via Internet.) as shown in parallel which is convenient to provide energy continuously.
figure 2 for Kirkuk city (35° 28 N and 44° 23 E) [15].The Batteries specifications and data were shown in figure 4.
Solar energy which reaches the ground depends on the
clearness index which is a measure of the clearness of the
atmosphere. This index is the fraction of the solar radiation
that is transmitted through the atmosphere to strike the
surface of the Earth. It is a dimensionless number between 0
and 1 and defined as the surface radiation divided by the
extraterrestrial radiation. The clearness index has a high value
under clear, sunny conditions, and a low value under cloudy
conditions, its value in our case study is taken in the range
(0.544 – 0.634).

FIG.4 Batteries specifications and data

B. Converter

For all converter sizes considered in the simulation (from 1

kW to 20kW), the rectifier and inverter efficiencies were
assumed to be 85% and 90% respectively. The converter
input data are shown in figure 5. Capital cost, replacement
FIG.2 Solar resources profile for Kirkuk city

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cost and operation and maintenance costs are illustrated in VI. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
this figure.
For the solar system of this work (as in figure-3), four case
studies for design optimization considering sun tracking
system types and temperature effects were simulated as
follows:

1- Simulation without using sun tracking system.

2- Simulation with using two-axis tracking system.

3- Simulation with using horizontal-axis tracking system.

4- Simulation with using vertical-axis tracking system.

Tables 1,2 and 3 show the simulation results for all tracking
system types ,with 25 different design configurations
arranged gradually according to the cost (starting at low cost
and ending at high cost), so the optimum design results are
FIG. 5 The converter input data
listed in the first row for 25 years system life time .
V. IMPlEMENTATION OF HOMER

HOMER software was implemented to study the effects of

TABLE 1 The first 25 simulation results in case with no
sun tracking system types and temperature parameters on the
design optimization of solar power systems for Kirkuk city, using of tracking system
based on its average ambient temperature per month as
shown in figure 6 [16].

FIG.6 Average ambient temperature for Kirkuk city

The temperature parameters considered in the simulation are,

the temperature coefficient of power (% / Cᵒ) and nominal
operating cell temperature (Cᵒ). The temperature coefficient
of power indicates how the maximum power varies with cell
temperature, and it was choose in this work in the range of (-
0. 1 to -1.1) % / Cᵒ. Nominal operating cell temperature is the
cell temperature at a solar radiation of 800W/m2, a wind
speed of 1m/sec, and it was choose in this work in the range
of (20 to 55 Cᵒ).

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TABLE 2 The first 25 simulation results in case with TABLE 3 The first 25 simulation results when using
using two-axis tracking system either horizontal or vertical -axis tracking system

The optimum system design configuration with minimum cost results for each tracking system can be extracted from the first row
of tables 1, 2 and 3, and listed in table-4 for 25 years system life time.It is clear from the results obtained that, the optimum system
design can be achieved when we adopt two-axis sun tracking system.

TABLE 4 The optimum design system configuration with minimum cost results for each tracking system
Optimum design system configuration Minimum cost results

Tracking system PV power No. of Converter Initial cost ($) Operating cost Total NPC($) COE ($/kWh)
(kW) batteries power (kW) ($/yr)

No 10 75 5 42500 5400 111525 0.752

Two-axis 10 30 5 38000 4332 93372 0.629

Horizontal or Vertical-axis 10 45 5 39500 4688 99423 0.670

The cost of PV, batteries, converter and the overall system (Total NPC) for optimum design of each sun tracking system
are listed in table-5 for 25 years system life time.

TABLE 5 The cost of PV, batteries, converter and the overall system for optimum design of each sun tracking system
Tracking system PV cost ($) Batteries cost ($) Converter cost ($) Total NPC ($)

No 68350 30255 12920 111525

Two-axis 68350 12102 12920 93372

Horizontal or Vertical-axis 68350 18153 12920 99423

The results obtained in table 6 show how NPC and COE varies with the temperature coefficient of power at specific
operating cell temperature (47 C°) for the above mentioned four case studies.. Table 7 show the effect of increasing
operating cell temperature on NPC and COE for specific value of temperature coefficient of power(-0.5%/C°) for four
considered case studies. Both NPC and COE are inversely proportion with temperature coefficient of power, and direct
proportion with operating cell temperature.

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 2016 Al-Sadeq International Conference on Multidisciplinary in IT and Communication Science and
Applications (AIC-MITCSA) – IRAQ (9-10) May

TABLE 6 The effect of temperature coefficient on total NPC & COE for operating cell temperature = 47 C°
Temperature Without tracking system Two-axis tracking system Horiztental-axis tracking Vertical-axis tracking
coefficient of power Total NPC COE Total NPC COE Total NPC COE Total NPC COE [$/kWh]
[% / C°] [$] [$/kWh] [$] [$/kWh] [$] [$/kWh] [$]
-1.1 161,722 1.090 99,423 0.670 105,474 0.711 105,474 0.711
-0.9 161,722 1.090 93,372 0.630 105,474 0.711 105,474 0.711
-0.7 111,525 0.752 93,372 0.629 105,474 0.711 105,474 0.711
-0.5 111,525 0.752 93,372 0.629 99,423 0.670 99,423 0.670
-0.3 111,525 0.752 93,372 0.629 99,423 0.670 99,423 0.670
-0.1 111,525 0.752 93,372 0.629 99,423 0.670 99,423 0.670
TABLE 7 The effect of operating cell temperature on NPC & COE for temperature coefficient of power = - 0.5%/C°

Operating cell Without tracking system Two-axis tracking system Horiztental-axis tracking Vertical-axis tracking
temperature Total NPC COE Total NPC COE Total NPC COE Total NPC COE [$/kWh]
[C°] [$] [$/kWh] [$] [$/kWh] [$] [$/kWh] [$]
20 99,423 0.671 93,372 0.629 99,423 0.670 93,372 0.629
30 105.474 0.711 93,372 0.629 105,474 0.711 93,372 0.630
40 111,525 0.752 93,372 0.629 105,474 0.711 99,423 0.670
55 161,722 1.090 99.423 0.677 105,474 0.711 105,474 0.711

VII. CONCLUSIONS
The design optimization of the photovoltaic modules with the
environmental parameters change, such as solar irradiance and
temperature for Kirkuk city using HOMER software was
implemented. Four case studies considering tracking system
type and temperature effects were investigated. The cost of
energy (COE) with the total net present cost (NPC) were
calculated for each case study . The optimum solar system
design was achived when we adopt two-axis sun tracking
system. Both NPC and COE were found inversely proportion
with temperature coefficient of power ,and direct proportion
with operating cell temperature.
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