Date of Award

1-1-2011

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

M.S.

Organizational Unit

Daniel Felix Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science

First Advisor

Yun Bo Yi, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Mohammad Matin

Third Advisor

Wenzhong Gao

Keywords

Geographic information system, GIS application, Grid-connected system, Solar energy, Stand-alone system, System modeling

Abstract

At present the main source of our power and energy needs are from fossil fuel; almost all transportation tools and nearly 70% of electrical power are produced by fossil fuel. But unfortunately these materials are limited in our planet, with obvious drawback such as pollution. So looking for new kinds of energy supply is an urgent matter. Solar-powered photovoltaic system provides a clean energy solution to this problem. It is developing fast all over the world in terms of both research work and actual applications. It is estimated that the power supplied by solar energy can provide 10 percent of United States power needs. This thesis mainly discusses photovoltaic system modeling from the beginning of site selection to system sizing. Some tools are used during the project. A GIS application is used to help developers in the preliminary studies. Photovoltaic system simulation software PVsyst involves the system components setting and sizing process. Two types of systems are built in this study: stand-alone system and grid connected system; the location is set at Denver, Colorado. For each system the array mounting, analysis of loads and modules selection are studied. The simulation is performed after the system model is completed, the results includes loss diagrams, system energy yields and system efficiencies. At last the economic analysis and comparison between the two types of PV systems is analyzed.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Jiaqi Wang

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

147 p.

Discipline

Energy, Electrical engineering

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