Harvesting Roadway Solar Energy-Performance of the Installed Infrastructure Integrated PV Bike Path

Aditya Shekhar, Vinod Kumar Kumaravel, Stan Klerks, Sten de Wit, Venugopal Prasanth, Nishant Narayan, Pavol Bauer, Olindo Isabella, Miro Zeman

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

49 Citations (Scopus)
24 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Solar road technology provides an opportunity to harvest the vast, albeit dispersed, photovoltaic (PV) energy, while maximizing the land utilization. Deriving experience from the pioneering 70-m solar bike path installed in the Netherlands, this paper highlights the operational challenges and performance parameters using the first-year measured data. The theoretically predicted energy yield is compared with the measured energy yield. Based on the best performing module, the benchmark annual energy yield is set to 85&#x2013;90&#x00A0;kWh/m<formula><tex>$^2$</tex></formula> specific to the installation site. It is shown that this value can be bettered by about 1.5 times if different cell technology such as monocrystalline is used. With different installation sites around the world, thermal behavior as well as annual energy yield changes. Theoretical proof is offered that it is not unreasonable to expect an annual energy yield in the upwards of 150&#x00A0;kWh/m<formula><tex>$^2$</tex></formula> with solar road energy harvesting technology. For example, the annual yield is found to be 213&#x00A0;kWh/m<formula><tex>$^2$</tex></formula> if the same model is simulated for a solar road PV installation in India, which increased further with the use of monocrystalline to almost 300&#x00A0;kWh/m<formula><tex>$^2$</tex></formula>.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1066-1073
Number of pages8
JournalIEEE Journal of Photovoltaics
Volume8
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2018

Bibliographical note

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Keywords

  • Annual energy yield
  • energy harvester
  • infrastructure integrated photovoltaics (IIPV)
  • module temperature
  • photovoltaics (PV)
  • roadway
  • solar pavement
  • solar powered street
  • solar road (SR)

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