• Energy Research

This paper deals the study of the lead-acid behavior and its modelling based on the Kinetic Battery Model. Results of experimental tests are used to realize the analysis and to estimate the model parameters. These last can serve for prediction and estimation of the battery lifetime according to the actual operating conditions.

AbstractHow much the energy transition will cost is yet to be determined. In the electricity sector, studies continue to show trends of decreasing costs for various renewable energy technologies such as solar photovoltaic and wind. Recurring recommendations are made from international organizations to phase-out energy subsidies on conventional fuels in order to make competitive electricity generation with renewable energy. In this chapter, the authors demonstrate how electricity generation with renewable resources can contribute to the decarbonization of utility generation. Considering the examples of Ghana and Senegal. They propose a new approach with five pillars to decarbonize electricity supply from the grid in the West Africa region.

Perovskite is certainly the material of the future of photovoltaics for terrestrial applications. With high efficiencies and advances in stability, perovskite solar cells, modules and mini-modules have already made their appearance in the laboratory and are being tested under real-world conditions to evaluate their real performance. In our study, we predict the performance of perovskite-based photovoltaic panel technology under the conditions of the Sub-Saharan African region by simulation. We started from the current-voltage characteristic of a real perovskite-based module to extract the cell parameters through MATLAB analysis software. These parameters were used to model a cell and then a module in the LTSpice XVII software for simulation. The impact of temperature is studied to evaluate the performance ratio (PR) of a clear day. This study allowed us to evaluate the PR of the perovskite solar module. Displaying PR reaching 90%, perovskite is a future candidate with high potential in the list of the most suitable technologies for our sub-region.

In this work, impacts of temperature and dust cleaning on photovoltaic module performance operating in sub-Saharan's climate are investigated. Two single junction technologies, monocrystalline and polycrystalline silicon, and one micromorph (amorphous/micrystalline) thin film silicon tandem technology are considered. We have recorded at the same time under real operating conditions, the module temperature and the current versus voltage characteristics of each module, and the local solar irradiation. All the measurements were performed with the outdoor monitoring and test facility located at Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. The results show the drop of generated power of dusty modules for the same irradiation level. Between April and June (where temperatures are higher) a significant drop of output power is observed, despite a daily cleaning. Furthermore, performance losses are observed for all technologies compared to that under standard test conditions. However, the micromorph silicon tandem technology with low temperature sensitivity present the less losses in performance compared to the monocrystalline and the polycrystalline single junction modules, even if the modules are not cleaned.

This paper presents a small review on the technological advances made on the perovskite-based solar cell. Through this summary of the results of the research on perovskite, the reader will have an overview of the perovskite material, the different structures of a perovskite solar cell, and the opto-electrical properties of such cell as well as the electrical models used in its simulation. Finally, the paper presents in a very brief way the challenges that this technology will have to overcome before finding its place in the photovoltaic market.

This paper analyses the performance of a NH3–H2O absorption machine powered with a linear Fresnel reflector. , The various components of the absorption machine and the linear Fresnel reflector were dimensioned for a power of 10 kW. A numerical model combining Monte Carlo ray tracing and Computational Fluid Dynamics was developed to evaluate the outlet temperature of the linear Fresnel reflector. The outlet temperature is used as input data for the simulation of the thermodynamic model of the NH3–H2O absorption machine using the commercial software Engineering Equation Solver. The results showed that the linear Fresnel reflector consists of 30 reflectors with a length of 10 m and a wide of 0.2 m each, 5 absorber tubes with a height of 4 m each and 1 trapezoidal cavity with a length of 10 m and a height of 4.065 m. A hot source temperature of 169.24 °C was recorded when the coefficient of performance reaches 0.510.

Thin film solar cells temperature sensitivity and impact of the main recombination mechanism location are investigated in this paper. The main mechanisms in bulk and at the heterojunction interface are discriminated. Using a 1D simulation software, “Solar Cell Capacitance Simulator” (SCAPS), we observed a higher temperature coefficient of open circuit voltage (Voc) for cells with main recombination centers at the interface than the one with main recombination centers in volume. Furthermore, an LTSpice module model is used to visualize the effects of the recombination centers' location on the performance ratios of the modules. The results show more degradation for the ratios performance of cells with the main recombination mechanisms at the interface than those in volume.