Modeling and Experimental Verification of Solar Radiation

on a Sloped Surface, Photovoltaic Cell Temperature, and

Photovoltaic Efficiency
Yasser Aldali1; Ali Naci Celik2; and Tariq Muneer3
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Abstract: This article presents modeling and experimental verification of conversion of solar irradiation from horizontal to sloped surfaces and
photovoltaic cell temperature and an analysis of photovoltaic conversion efficiency. Modeling and validation of the models are carried out on the
basis of measurements conducted using the experimental system set in a city in southern Turkey. In addition to current, voltage, and cell temperature
of the photovoltaic module, environmental variables such as ambient temperature and solar irradiance were measured and used for validation
purposes. Correlation of conversion of solar irradiation from horizontal to sloped surfaces indicated that the presently used model is highly suc-
cessful because of the fitting parameters: the coefficient of determination ðR2 Þ ¼ 0.97, and the mean bias error ðMBEÞ ¼ −2.2. Similarly, the cell
temperature model used in the present article is validated by the following correlation parameters: ðR2 Þ ¼ 0.97, MBE ¼ 0.7, and root-mean-square
error ðRMSEÞ ¼ 2.1. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)EY.1943-7897.0000082. © 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
CE Database subject headings: Solar radiation; Solar power; Experimentation; Slopes; Models.
Author keywords: Photovoltaic cell efficiency; Solar irradiation; Conversion of solar irradiation; Photovoltaic cell temperature.

Introduction Photovoltaic Modules and the Experimental Setup

The global installed capacity of photovoltaic systems, which was
approximately 2 GW (Aratani 2005) in 2003, grew to 21 GW
by the end of 2009 (Furkan 2011). According to the International
Energy Agency (IEA), the grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) power
installed during 2010 was 14,098 MW for all IEA Photovoltaic Power
Systems Programme (PVPS) countries (IEA 2011). It can therefore
be deduced that photovoltaic systems will be one of the key players
in the field of energy. The recent high growth rate of photovoltaic
power has also led to an increase in research projects on various
aspects of photovoltaics, from development of novel photovoltaic
cells (Breeze et al. 2004; Jean-François 2004) to performance analy-
sis, sizing, performance estimation, and optimization of photovoltaic
energy systems (Celik 2002; Fanney and Dougherty 2001).
This article presents modeling and experimental verification of
conversion of solar irradiation from horizontal to sloped surfaces
and photovoltaic cell temperature and an analysis of photovoltaic
conversion efficiency. The experimental system was installed in a
city in southern Turkey. In addition to current (I) and voltage (V) of
the photovoltaic module, environmental variables such as ambient
temperature and solar irradiance were measured and used for
validation purposes.
1
School of Engineering and Built Environment, Edinburgh Napier
Univ., Edinburgh, United Kingdom; on leave from Faculty of Engineering,
Mechanical Engineering Dept., Omar Al-Mukhtar Univ., Libya (corre-
sponding author). E-mail: y.aldali@napier.ac.uk
2
Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Dept. of Mechanical
Engineering, Abant Izzet Baysal Univ., 14280, Bolu, Turkey.
3
School of Engineering and Built Environment, Edinburgh Napier
Univ., Edinburgh, United Kingdom. E-mail: T.muneer@napier.ac.uk
Note. This manuscript was submitted on November 28, 2011; approved
on May 16, 2012; published online on May 19, 2012. Discussion period
open until August 1, 2013; separate discussions must be submitted for in-
dividual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Energy Engineering,
Vol. 139, No. 1, March 1, 2013. © ASCE, ISSN 0733-9402/2013/1-8-11/
$25.00.
The experimental system consisted of 120-W monocrystalline pho-
tovoltaic modules situated at the top of a building in Iskenderun
(36°35 0 13 00 N; 36°10 0 24 00 E), on the eastern Mediterranean coast
of Turkey. The modules were mounted tilted at an angle equal
to the latitude of the location, facing south. Fig. 1 shows the photo-
voltaic modules situated on the roof of the building. Technical char-
acteristics of the photovoltaic modules are as follows: short-circuit
current at reference condition, I sc;ref ¼ 7.7 A; open-circuit voltage
at reference condition, V oc;ref ¼ 21 V; current at maximum power
point at reference condition, I mp;ref ¼ 7.1 A; voltage at maximum
power point at reference condition, V mp;ref ¼ 16.9 V; and power at
maximum power point at reference condition, Pmp;ref ¼ 120 W.
These are provided by the manufacturer for the reference condi-
tions of 1;000 W=m2 of irradiance level, 25°C of cell temperature,
and 1.5 air mass (AM), which is the ratio of the mass of air that
the beam radiation has to traverse at any given time and location to
the mass of air that the beam radiation would traverse if the sun
were directly overhead (De Soto et al. 2006). The photovoltaic
modules under study are made up of 36 cells connected in series,
each of 0.027 m2 , adding up to a total area of 0.974 m2 . The elec-
tron band gap, Eq , is 1.124 eV for this monocrystalline silicon
photovoltaic module.
The layout of the experimental system is presented in Fig. 2.
In addition to the photovoltaic modules, the experimental system
contains 200 Ah=12 V of sealed type lead-acid battery and a direct
current/alternating current (DC/ac) inverter of 600 W=12 V and
230 V=50 Hz, with a maximum efficiency of 98%. The load con-
nected to the photovoltaic system is a number of lightbulbs, whose
power varies between 0 and 200 W depending on the state of charge
of the battery. The photovoltaic modules are connected to the
battery and the load through an inverter and a charge controller.
Four K-type thermocouples were installed and fixed on the back
surface of the PV module by thermal tape to measure cell temper-
ature, and one thermocouple was installed to monitor the ambient
temperature.

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J. Energy Eng. 2013.139:8-11.

 surface irradiation. Thus, validity of the theory used to convert
horizontal radiation to sloped radiation was questioned.
Solar radiation incident on any given surface can be decom-
posed into two components, the direct or beam component emanat-
ing from the sun and a diffuse component that results from multiple
reflections and scattering because of particles in the atmosphere.
The diffuse component may also include reflections from the
ground and local surroundings, where the surface in question is
sloped rather than horizontal. Differentiating between the two
components is vital for accurate calculations in most solar energy
applications; however, a number of steps may be required to arrive
at realistic estimates at an appropriate level of detail for a given
location depending on the basic data available.
The slope solar irradiation has three components—that is, beam,
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diffuse, and ground reflected:

I S ¼ I BT þ I DT þ I g ð1Þ

Fig. 1. Photovoltaic modules mounted at an angle of 36° situated on where I S = slope radiation; I BT = slope beam irradiance; I DT =
the top of a building in Iskenderun, Turkey sky-diffuse irradiance; and I g = ground-reflected radiation.
Hourly slope beam irradiance is obtained through
 
cos θ
The long-term values of wind speed are available at the National I BT ¼ I B ð2Þ
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) renewable energy sin ϕ
resource website (“Surface meteorology and Solar Energy”) and
If measured directly, I B can be observed as the difference be-
have been used in this paper for the city in southern Turkey.
tween hourly horizontal global (I G ) and diffuse (I D ) irradiance.
For purposes of measuring the PV performance, a HOBO
Muneer’s (2004) model for tilted surface diffuse radiation is
Silicon Pyranometer Smart Sensor with an accuracy of
5%
given by
was used. The measurement range for the pyranometer was
0–1;280 W=m2 over the spectral range of 300–1,100 nm with I DT ¼ I D cos2 ðβ=2Þ
1.25W=m2 resolutions.    
2b β
þ sin β − β cos β − πsin2 ð3Þ
πð3 þ 2bÞ 2
Modeling
where I D = diffuse irradiance on a horizontal plane; and ½2b=πð3 þ
The objectives of the present article are modeling and experimental 2bÞ is given by
verification of conversion of solar irradiation from horizontal to  
sloped surfaces and photovoltaic cell temperature and an analysis 2b
¼ 0.04 − 0.82F − 02.0260F2 ð4Þ
of photovoltaic conversion efficiency. Experimental verification of πð3 þ 2bÞ
the modeling studies and the analysis of photovoltaic conversion
efficiency were carried out using the data measured from the photo- F is the sky clarity index given as follows:
voltaic system, solar irradiation on horizontal and sloped surfaces,  
IG − ID
and the cell and ambient temperatures. Data were measured at 30-s F¼ ð5Þ
intervals and were stored in data loggers and averaged further as IE
required. where I E = horizontal extraterrestrial irradiance and can be esti-
mated by the following formula:
Conversion of Solar Radiation from Horizontal to
Sloped Surface I E ¼ 1367½1 þ 0.033 cosð0.0172024 DNÞ sin ϕ ð6Þ

Solar irradiation measured on a horizontal surface was converted to where DN = day number. Ground-reflected radiation can be
that on a sloped surface and then compared with measured sloped obtained from the following equation:

Inverter Charge controller

Current
measurement

PC
Load Battery
Voltage
measurement

Photovoltaic
module

Fig. 2. Layout of the experimental system

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J. Energy Eng. 2013.139:8-11.


Fig. 3. Evaluation of presently used slope radiation model
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β
I g ¼ ρI G sin2 ð7Þ
2
where ρ = average albedo of the ground. The surface albedo for
sand is set to 0.34 (for white sand, the range is from 0.34 to
0.40) (Muneer 2004).
Solar radiation data converted using the previous method were
measured in the experimental system from January 2005 to May
2005 at 5-min intervals. Calculated solar radiation data are com-
pared with those measured on a sloped surface in Fig. 3. One of
the most important indicators of the goodness of fit of the model is
the coefficient of determination (R2 ), which is 0.97 in this case. The
mean bias error (MBE) is −2.2, and the root-mean square error
(RMSE) is 60.9.
Estimation of Cell Temperature
It is well known that the efficiency of a photovoltaic solar cell de-
creases with an increase in solar cell temperature. Cell temperature
influences the I-V characteristics and therefore the electrical
efficiency of the PV module. The model proposed by Mattei et al.
(2006) is used presently for calculation of the cell temperature.
This model is based on the energy balance with the following
hypotheses:
• The radiation loss from the back side of the PV module to
ground has been neglected.
• The temperature on the PV surface is considered uniform.
Thermal losses from the PV module to its surroundings are im-
portant, limiting the thermal performance of a photovoltaic thermal
system. Such losses can be associated with all modes of heat trans-
fer (i.e., conduction, convection, and radiation). Representation of
thermal losses by a thermal network diagram for a photovoltaic
system is given in Fig. 4. The model of the PV module was imple-
mented using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), which also
made use of the processing features of Microsoft Excel. The energy
balance is given by
I s τ αð1 − ηcell Þ ¼ ðhcs × T c − hcs × T SKY Þ
þ ðhca × T c − hca × T a Þ ð8Þ
where T c = cell temperature; T SKY = sky temperature; T a = ambient
temperature; hcs = heat transfer coefficient from the solar cell to the
sky; and hc = surface heat transfer coefficient for the front and back
surfaces of the PV module.
Sky Temperature Calculations
The following relationship has been used to calculate the sky
temperature if ambient temperature is known:
T SKY ¼ 0.0552 · T 1.5 ð9Þ
a G×A
10 / JOURNAL OF ENERGY ENGINEERING © ASCE / MARCH 2013
J. Energy Eng. 2013.139:8-11.
Fig. 4. Thermal losses represented by thermal network diagram for a
photovoltaic system
Eq. (9) was proposed by Swinbank (1963) for estimating rea-
sonably accurate values of radiative heat loss to the sky.
Wind Heat Transfer Coefficient
Duffie and Beckman (1991) suggest the use of the expression given
by McAdams for flat plates exposed to outside winds
hca ¼ 5.67 þ 3.8ν ð10Þ
where hca = heat transfer coefficient for the flat surface; and ν =
wind speed. According to Cole and Sturrock (1977), 2 × hca is the
heat exchange coefficient corresponding to the total surface area
of the module (i.e., two times the surface area corresponding to
hca because the heat is lost by the two faces of the PV module).
Radiative Heat Transfer Coefficient
The radiative heat transfer coefficient hcs is determined by
½σεc ðT 4c − T 4SKY Þ
hcs ¼ ð11Þ
T c − T SKY
where εc = emissivity of the PV module cover for long-wavelength
radiation. For an operation without a cooling system, initialization
of temperature, T c , was first made as
T c ¼ T a þ 10
 
I τ αð1 − ηcell Þ þ ðhcs × T SKY þ 2 × hca × T a Þ
Tc ¼ S ð12Þ
ðhcs þ 2 × hca Þ
To set up the calculation iterative routine, T c is assumed to be
10°C above the dry-bulb temperature. With the given inputs of
dry- and wet-bulb temperatures, the sky temperatures are obtained
from Eq. (9). Then, using Eqs. (10)–(12), the improved value of T c
(i.e., T co ) is obtained. This improved value is checked against its
old value of T c , and further iterations are carried out until the ab-
solute value of the difference between T co and T c is less than 0.01.
Cell temperatures calculated using the previous equations are
compared with those measured in Fig. 5 for the presently available
data. For this correlation, R2 is 0.97, MBE is 0.7, and RMSE is
2.1. The measured data set that was presently used was collected
between June 18 and July 17, 2004, at Antakya, Turkey. The fre-
quency of measurement was 1 min.
PV Efficiency
The simple relationship of power for a photovoltaic module is
P ¼ IV ð13Þ
The corresponding module efficiency is
P
η¼ × 100 ð14Þ

Fig. 5. Evaluation of presently used procedure for computing cell
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temperature
Fig. 6. Frequency histogram for measured PV module efficiency
The efficiency values calculated from the measured current and
voltage values are given in Fig. 6 in terms of frequency histograms.
The efficiency values are averages of hourly data measured from
June to July in 2004. It is obviously seen that approximately 90% of
module efficiency values are between 10% and 11%.
Conclusions
In the present article, based on measurements made using an
experimental PV system set in a city in southern Turkey, models
for conversion of solar irradiation from horizontal to sloped surfa-
ces and photovoltaic cell temperature were experimentally vali-
dated, and an analysis of photovoltaic conversion efficiency was
carried out. The most important conclusions drawn from this study
are as follows:
1. As one of the commonly used methods, the conversion of
solar radiation from horizontal to sloped surfaces can be
successfully investigated using the theory developed by
Muneer (2004). The correlation between the calculated and
measured solar radiation on a sloped surface using the pre-
viously described model showed that the radiation values
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J. Energy Eng. 2013.139:8-11.
are closely predicted as indicated by the favorable value of
coefficient of determination, 0.97.
2. The knowledge of cell temperature is imperative to determine
the efficiency of PV modules. There are various theories
developed to calculate the cell temperature from some
commonly measured meteorological data. The method used
presently offers a sound theory to calculate the cell tempera-
ture on the basis of various parameters. With the theory used,
the cell temperature was predicted accurately.
3. The efficiency of a PV module and thus a PV system deter-
mines the technoeconomic viability of such projects. The
statistical analysis of efficiency showed that the bulk of the
efficiency values fell in the interval between 10% and 11%
for this system.
Acknowledgments
This work has been financed by the Scientific and Technical Coun-
cil of Turkey (TUBITAK) under contract number MISAG-240.
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