Engineering Papers⌕ Search

Engineering topics

Sengupta, Manajit

Publications and source records attributed to Sengupta, Manajit.

213 records · Page 12
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2012

PV Ramping in a Distributed Generation Environment: A Study Using Solar Measurements; Preprint

Variability in Photovoltaic (PV) generation resulting from variability in the solar radiation over the PV arrays is a topic of continuing concern for those involved with integrating renewables onto existing electrical grids. The island of Lanai, Hawaii is an extreme example of the challenges that integrators will face due to the fact that it is a small standalone grid. One way to study thisproblem is to take high-resolution solar measurements in multiple locations and model simultaneous PV production for various sizes at those locations. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) collected high-resolution solar data at four locations on the island where proposed PV plants will be deployed in the near future. This data set provides unique insight into how the solar radiationmay vary between points that are proximal in distance, but diverse in weather, due to the formation of orographic clouds in the center of the island. Using information about each proposed PV plant size, power output was created at high resolution. The team analyzed this output to understand power production ramps at individual locations and the effects of aggregating the production from all fourlocations. Hawaii is a unique environment, with extremely variable events occurring on a daily basis. This study provided an excellent opportunity for understanding potential worst-case scenarios for PV ramping. This paper provides an introduction to the datasets that NREL collected over a year and a comprehensive analysis of PV variability in a distributed generation scenario.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2012

Performance Testing using Silicon Devices - Analysis of Accuracy: Preprint

Accurately determining PV module performance in the field requires accurate measurements of solar irradiance reaching the PV panel (i.e., Plane-of-Array - POA Irradiance) with known measurement uncertainty. Pyranometers are commonly based on thermopile or silicon photodiode detectors. Silicon detectors, including PV reference cells, are an attractive choice for reasons that include faster timeresponse (10 us) than thermopile detectors (1 s to 5 s), lower cost and maintenance. The main drawback of silicon detectors is their limited spectral response. Therefore, to determine broadband POA solar irradiance, a pyranometer calibration factor that converts the narrowband response to broadband is required. Normally this calibration factor is a single number determined under clear-skyconditions with respect to a broadband reference radiometer. The pyranometer is then used for various scenarios including varying airmass, panel orientation and atmospheric conditions. This would not be an issue if all irradiance wavelengths that form the broadband spectrum responded uniformly to atmospheric constituents. Unfortunately, the scattering and absorption signature varies widely withwavelength and the calibration factor for the silicon photodiode pyranometer is not appropriate for other conditions. This paper reviews the issues that will arise from the use of silicon detectors for PV performance measurement in the field based on measurements from a group of pyranometers mounted on a 1-axis solar tracker. Also we will present a comparison of simultaneous spectral andbroadband measurements from silicon and thermopile detectors and estimated measurement errors when using silicon devices for both array performance and resource assessment.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS2011

Towards an Improved High Resolution Global Long-Term Solar Resource Database

This paper presents an overview of an ongoing project to develop and deliver a solar mapping processing system to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) using the data sets that are planned for production at the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). NCDC will be producing a long-term radiance and cloud property data set covering the globe every three hours at an approximate resolution of 10 x 10 km. NASA, the originators of the Surface meteorology and Solar Energy web portal are collaborating with SUNY-Albany to develop the production system and solar algorithms. The initial result will be a global long-term solar resource data set spanning over 25 years. The ultimate goal of the project is to also deliver this data set and production system to NREL for continual production. The project will also assess the impact of providing these new data to several NREL solar decision support tools.

Stackhouse, Paul W.↗
DOE OSTI2011

Towards an Improved High Resolution Global Long-Term Solar Resource Database

This paper presents an overview of an ongoing project to develop and deliver a solar mapping processing system to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) using the data sets that are planned for production at the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). NCDC will be producing a long-term radiance and cloud property data set covering the globe every three hours at an approximate resolution of 10 x 10 km. NASA, the originators of the Surface meteorology and Solar Energy web portal are collaborating with SUNY-Albany to develop the production system and solar algorithms. The initial result will be a global long-term solar resource data set spanning over 25 years. The ultimate goal of the project is to also deliver this data set and production system to NREL for continual production. The project will also assess the impact of providing these new data to several NREL solar decision support tools.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2010

Validating an operational physical method to compute surface radiation from geostationary satellites

We developed models to compute global horizontal irradiance (GHI) and direct normal irradiance (DNI) over the last three decades. These models can be classified as empirical or physical based on the approach. Empirical models relate ground-based observations with satellite measurements and use these relations to compute surface radiation. Physical models consider the physics behind the radiation received at the satellite and create retrievals to estimate surface radiation. Furthermore, while empirical methods have been traditionally used for computing surface radiation for the solar energy industry, the advent of faster computing has made operational physical models viable. The Global Solar Insolation Project (GSIP) is a physical model that computes DNI and GHI using the visible and infrared channel measurements from a weather satellite. GSIP uses a two-stage scheme that first retrieves cloud properties and uses those properties in a radiative transfer model to calculate GHI and DNI. Developed for polar orbiting satellites, GSIP has been adapted to NOAA's Geostationary Operation Environmental Satellite series and can run operationally at high spatial resolutions. Our method holds the possibility of creating high quality datasets of GHI and DNI for use by the solar energy industry. We present an outline of the methodology and results from running the model as well as a validation study using ground-based instruments.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗