3D-Analytical Method Analysis of Thermal Effect in Space Shaded Solar Panel

Photovoltaic PV module must be able to endure the effects of periodic hot-spots heating that can occur when panel cells are operated under reverse biased conditions. For practical applications, it is important to accurately estimate the junction temperature of PV cells and analyze their thermal characteristics. However, panel manufacturers generally do not provide information about the behavior of their cells under the shadowing conditions. To deal with this issue, analytical and simulation studies can provide the needed feedback to anticipate any internal cell failure process. In this paper, the analytical model based on the solutions of the governing heat equations is used in order to determine temperature fields of a solar panel in reverse bias mode to select and predict expected and risked hot spots. It was observed that each unit shaded cell is capable to self-generating an amount of heat, which needs to be removed efficiently to anticipate any failures process. To compare results the Transmission Line Matrix method (TLM) and finite element method (FEM) using the Msc Patran/Nastran software are used to map the surface temperature distribution. A good consistency has been observed by accepting an error less than 2% for TLM model and error less than 4% for FEM model. The analytical method helps to select and locate the expected hot spots in shadowed panel and to highlight the need of thermal study pre-design thus to minimize the system-level thermal dissipation and then lead to higher reliability.