ASME 2015 Power and Energy Conversion Conference

Assessment of Photovoltaic San Diego, CA, June 28 – July 02, 2015

SAND2015-5177C
Surface Texturing on
Transmittance Effects and
Glint/Glare Impacts
(PowerEnergy2015-49481)

Julius Yellowhair
Clifford K. Ho

Sandia National Laboratories

Concentrating Solar
Technologies
Albuquerque, NM 87185-1127
jeyello@sandia.gov

Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia

Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of
Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.
Outline

 Background
 Motivation for this work
 Approach
 Results and Discussion
 Conclusion & future work

2
Background – PV Module Construction

www.solarquotes.com.au

3
Background (2/2) – Reflections

http://www.iala-aism.org/wiki/dictionary/index.php?title=Mixed_Reflection

4
Motivation

1. Solar glint/glare from PV modules is caused by

reflections off PV glass covers – minimize this.

www.pagerpower.com www.freerepublic.com

2. Maximizing transmittance through cover glass to

solar cells can increase energy production.

5
 Surface Roughness Measurements Process
1.

2.

3.
Measure the
small replica with
an optical
profilometer
Prepare & clean the PV
panel to be replicated
Replicate the PV panel
surface with a 2-part
rubber compound

4.
Mountain Digital Surf Matlab
Analyze the measured
surface data to get the
surface statistics

6
Surface Roughness Measurement Data

7
Reflectance Measurements

8
Reflected Solar Beam Spread Measurements

Samples courtesy of Canadian Solar, Inc.

Smooth (float) glass, Lightly textured glass, Deeply textured glass

9
Beam Spread Calculations
800

600

400
Beam spread at 1 = 27.3 mrad
200

0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4
Framex #212

200

400

600

800
(m)

0
0
0.1
500

0.2
0.3
1000

0.4
y (m)
1500

0.5
0.6
2000

0.7
2500
0.8
Beam spread at 1 = 27.8 mrad
0.9

500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000

10
Results on Surface Roughness & Beam Spread

11
Ocular Hazards Study

Irradiance on the retina:

𝜌𝐸𝐷𝑁𝐼 𝑑𝑝2 𝜏
𝐸𝑟 =
𝛽2 𝑓2

Irradiance threshold for

after-image potential:
3.59 × 10−5
𝐸𝑟,𝑓𝑙𝑎𝑠ℎ =
𝜔1.77

12
 Ocular Impacts From PV Surface Texturing

Low potential Potential for

for after-image after-image

𝐸𝑟 < 𝐸𝑟,𝑓𝑙𝑎𝑠ℎ

1
𝜌𝐸𝐷𝑁𝐼 𝑑𝑝2 𝜏 0.23
𝛽 𝜌 >
𝑓 2 3.59 × 10−5

13
Example of PV Cover Glass Design

14
Conclusions & Future Work

 Measured reflectance, surface roughness, and solar beam

spread from several PV modules
 We attempted to correlate the beam spread to the surface
roughness
 Developed a design method to minimize glint/glare from PV
modules and maximize transmittance
 Results were incorporated in the SGHAT code

 Would like to study soiling effects on textured surfaces

 Build engineered surface texturing for PV and evaluate

15
Extra Slides

16
Replication Accuracy & Verification

17
Slope Error Calculation From Glare Measurements

• The angular beam spread after reflection is defined as:

𝜎BeamSpread = 𝜎Sun + 𝜎Total_SlopeError Note that  can be one-sided or two-sided. In this analysis,
a two-sided  is used, which gives the full beam spread.

– where the Sun subtended angle (𝜎Sun ) is about 9 mrad

• The ‘Total Slope Error’ quantity is a combination of the panel
surface slope error and specularity due to surface texturing;
it’s typically defined as:
2 2
𝜎Total_SlopeError = 4𝜎SE + 𝜎Sp

– where 𝜎SE is from the surface slope errors, and 𝜎Sp is the specularity
from the surface texturing (i.e. surface roughness); the factor of 4 is
because the surface slope errors are measured at the surface, whereas
the specularity is measured at the reflected beam – note that with a
single glare measurement, these two quantities are difficult to
decouple
18