Indoor Testing of Solar Systems: A Solar Simulator for Multidisciplinary Research on Solar Technologies

Abstract

The department of Mechanical Engineering in Cyprus University of Technology (CUT), recently commissioned a large scale solar simulator, to facilitate interdisciplinary research on solar systems. The simulator has been designed to simulate sunlight with respect to both intensity and spectrum. This paper will present results from a series of measurements carried out to calibrate the simulator including uniformity measurement of light intensity distribution and degree of light collimation. At the beginning, measurements of one single lamp were conducted to see its light uniformity in different rotation angles of the lamp lens and next tests for 4 lamps and 20 lamps were carried out to map the illumination intensity of the simulator. Subsequently, a real test was carried out concerning the performance characteristic curve of a polycrystalline PV panel. PV panels are generally very sensitive to the solar spectrum and they are ideal to check accuracy of the light produced from the simulator. Measurements have been carried out indoors with the use of the solar simulator as well as outdoors in natural sun in order to compare the performance curve of the PV for both conditions.