Solar technology: Seeking peak performance

February 16, 2010

Three faculty members in Arizona State University’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering are leading a project to improve the effectiveness of solar energy technology.<separator></separator>Arizona Public Service Co., the state’s largest utility company, is providing its STAR (solar technology and research) center in Tempe as an experimentation and test site.<separator></separator>Cihan Tepedelenlioglu, George Maracas and Andreas Spanias are using the research capabilities of the university’s Sensor, Signal and Information Processing (SenSIP) Industry Consortium – which focuses on technologies for digital signal processing systems, data mining, wireless communications, information networks and multimedia systems.<separator></separator>They’re exploring the application of sensor and signal information processing to methods of analyzing, measuring and testing the performance of arrays of photovoltaic modules used to produce electrical energy from sunlight.<separator></separator>The researchers are performing sophisticated monitoring to gather some of the most detailed technical data yet available on the factors that determine the performance of photovoltaic arrays.<separator></separator>Such advanced data will provide groundwork for developing more efficient, reliable and secure solar energy generation facilities, says Spanias, SenSIP’s director.<separator></separator>Spanias is co-directing the project with research professor George Maracas. Associate professor Cihan Tepedelenlioglu is the lead director. Each is on the faculty of the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering.<separator></separator>They will devise the sensor and information processing systems to detect and analyze how solar technology performs under a variety of situations, particularly changing atmospheric and weather conditions.<separator></separator>“The tools we have can give us the most data-rich and detailed understanding of how photovoltaic arrays are functioning, and to what extent operational and environmental conditions affect performance,” Maracas explains.<separator></separator>These efforts also complement research at ASU being funded through Science Foundation Arizona on a photovoltaic module laboratory and field testing of photovoltaics, Maracas adds.<separator></separator>Successful research results would enable utilities and solar power generating operations to forecast potentially disruptive situations and implement strategies to cope with difficulties, he says.<separator></separator>“If we can use our tools to devise algorithms that significantly improve the performance of photovoltaic installations,” Spanias says, “the result could be a major advance that would spur quicker adoption of renewable energy sources.”<separator></separator>SenSIP works with technologies encompassing a broad range of applications in security and defense, consumer electronics, medicine and health care, computer software systems, media technology, nanotechnology, environmental management, global positioning systems and antenna systems.<separator></separator>The consortium is under consideration to be designated a National Science Foundation industry/university collaborative research center. Its industry partners include such major companies as Raytheon Missile Systems, Intel Corporation, Lockheed Martin, National Instruments and Acoustic Technologies.<separator></separator>For more information, see the SenSIP web site at:  <a href="http://enpub.fulton.asu.edu/sensip/IC-SenSIP">http://enpub.fulton.asu.e… the latest SenSIP brochure at:  <a href="http://enpub.fulton.asu.edu/sensip/IC-SenSIP/files/BROCHURE-IC.pdf">htt…;

Engineering Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering