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Emerging Photovoltaic Technology in Northern Europe

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A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "A2: Solar Energy and Photovoltaic Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (21 February 2022) | Viewed by 21398
Please submit your paper and select the Journal "Energies" and the Special Issue "Emerging Photovoltaic Technology in Northern Europe" via: https://susy.mdpi.com/user/manuscripts/upload?journal=energies. Please contact the journal editor Adele Min ([email protected]) before submitting.

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Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Seppo Valkealahti

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Guest Editor

Electrical Engineering, Tampere University, P.O. Box 692, FI-33101 Tampere, Finland
Interests: power engineering; renewable energy; solar power; photovoltaic power systems; disruption of electrical energy system

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In modern photovoltaic systems, there is an increasing need to improve overall system efficiency and performance as a weather-dependent and highly variable power generation. Photovoltaic systems must meet, and even exceed, ever-increasing power grid connection requirements in order to support grid stability and ensure quality of electricity. In addition, future photovoltaic systems must be able to maintain the stability of the power grid and even initiate the power systems, at least microgrids. Due to the erosion of system installation costs, photovoltaic investments are following the exponential growth curve also in Northern European conditions, and there is a need to remove technical and nontechnical barriers to the large-scale integration of solar photovoltaic power into the power systems, distribution networks, and electricity markets. Photovoltaic systems must also be adapted to local radiation conditions and electrical system needs with minimal maintenance costs. Detection of internal faults in photovoltaic systems and reduction of energy losses, for example, due to soiling or partial shading, is essential.

This Special Issue has the objective of collecting recent original research results on modeling the operation of photovoltaic systems in Northern European conditions with the aim of maximizing output power, improving integration into power systems and distribution networks, and ensuring continuity of electricity service.

Prof. Dr. Seppo Valkealahti
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Photovoltaic systems
Grid integration
Fault detection
Degradation detection
PV in Northern Europe
Electricity markets
Modeling of PV system
Weather dependence
PV in electricity systems

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

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20 pages, 6404 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Ice Load Characteristics on Floating Photovoltaic Platform

by Tomasz Kolerski, Parisa Radan and Dariusz Gąsiorowski

Energies 2021, 14(9), 2466; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14092466 - 26 Apr 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1914

Abstract

Nowadays, based upon human needs and preferring perpetual types of energy, photovoltaic system (PV) is a suitable alternative and more frequently used in northern countries, which are recently more attracted by solar power. The new floating type of the structure is installed in the water bodies instead of land. One of the main elements in floating photovoltaic structures is the forces imposed on the panels. In the northern regions, the dominant load is considered to be ice interaction with the structure. This study aims at identifying the loads imposed on a floating PV structure located in the Łapino Reservoir on the Radunia River, which are produced by the wind action on the ice cover. The wind velocity varying between 10 and 26 m/s is implemented, and also the reduction of the pool level was studied. Wind direction plays an important role in the inclination and expansion of ice accumulation. Moreover, the magnitude of wind velocity is a determinative factor in the maximum thickness emerged in various spot of the area. Changes in pool level reduction is not able to cause noticeable changes in ice cover expansion and maximum ice thickness. Additionally, the shoving mechanism is able to originate abrupt changes in ice thickness by means of rising wind velocity. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Photovoltaic Technology in Northern Europe)

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23 pages, 9736 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Virtual Power Plant Solution for Aggregating Photovoltaic Systems and Other Distributed Energy Resources for Northern European Primary Frequency Reserves

by Rakshith Subramanya, Matti Yli-Ojanperä, Seppo Sierla, Taneli Hölttä, Jori Valtakari and Valeriy Vyatkin

Energies 2021, 14(5), 1242; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14051242 - 24 Feb 2021

Cited by 17 | Viewed by 3805

Abstract

Primary frequency reserves in Northern Europe have traditionally been provided with hydro plants and fossil fuel-burning spinning reserves. Recently, smart distributed energy resources have been equipped with functionality needed to participate on frequency reserves. Key categories of such resources include photovoltaic systems, batteries, and smart loads. Most of these resources are small and cannot provide the minimum controllable power required to participate on frequency reserves. Thus, virtual power plants have been used to aggregate the resources and trade them on the frequency reserves markets. The information technology aspects of virtual power plants are proprietary and many of the details have not been made public. The first contribution of this article is to propose a generic data model and application programming interface for a virtual power plant with the above-mentioned capabilities. The second contribution is to use the application programming interface to cope with the unpredictability of the frequency reserve capacity that the photovoltaic systems and other distributed energy resources are able to provide to the frequency reserves markets in the upcoming bidding period. The contributions are demonstrated with an operational virtual power plant installation at a Northern European shopping center, aggregating photovoltaic Primary Frequency Reserves resources. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Photovoltaic Technology in Northern Europe)

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15 pages, 3849 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Operation of a PV Power Plant during Overpower Events Caused by the Cloud Enhancement Phenomenon

by Markku Järvelä and Seppo Valkealahti

Energies 2020, 13(9), 2185; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13092185 - 01 May 2020

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1935

Abstract

Partly cloudy days possess two characteristics that can significantly increase the photovoltaic (PV) generator power: the operating temperature of the PV panels can cool down during the shade periods, and the irradiance can be enhanced due to the cloud enhancement phenomenon. If an overirradiance event is preceded by a long shade period, the maximum power of a PV generator can occasionally be much higher than the nominal nameplate power. During the overpower events, the inverter is operating in power-limiting mode whereby the operating voltage is increased to decrease the power of the PV generator. We created a simulation model of a 31.9 kW PV generator and used 12 months of irradiance and PV panel temperature measurement data to analyze its operation. We analyzed the PV generator power during the overirradiance events and applied various static power limits to calculate the operating voltage ranges in case of power curtailment. During the observation period, the maximum power produced by the PV generator was 1.42 times its nominal power. The duration of the overpower events was up to several minutes, but the typical duration was only some tens of seconds. The strongest overpower events occur seldom and their duration is only some seconds. Due to the overpower events, the operating voltage may receive high values, especially if the DC-to-AC power ratio is large. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Photovoltaic Technology in Northern Europe)

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17 pages, 4284 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

A Novel Fault Classification Approach for Photovoltaic Systems

by Varaha Satya Bharath Kurukuru, Frede Blaabjerg, Mohammed Ali Khan and Ahteshamul Haque

Energies 2020, 13(2), 308; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13020308 - 08 Jan 2020

Cited by 63 | Viewed by 3381

Abstract

Photovoltaic (PV) energy has become one of the main sources of renewable energy and is currently the fastest-growing energy technology. As PV energy continues to grow in importance, the investigation of the faults and degradation of PV systems is crucial for better stability and performance of electrical systems. In this work, a fault classification algorithm is proposed to achieve accurate and early failure detection in PV systems. The analysis is carried out considering the feature extraction capabilities of the wavelet transform and classification attributes of radial basis function networks (RBFNs). In order to improve the performance of the proposed classifier, the dynamic fusion of kernels is performed. The performance of the proposed technique is tested on a 1 kW single-phase stand-alone PV system, which depicted a 100% training efficiency under 13 s and 97% testing efficiency under 0.2 s, which is better than the techniques in the literature. The obtained results indicate that the developed method can effectively detect faults with low misclassification. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Photovoltaic Technology in Northern Europe)

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Review

Jump to: Research

18 pages, 14604 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperEditor’s ChoiceReview

Solar Energy in the Nordic Built Environment: Challenges, Opportunities and Barriers

by Matteo Formolli, Gabriele Lobaccaro and Jouri Kanters

Energies 2021, 14(24), 8410; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14248410 - 13 Dec 2021

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 3699

Abstract

Within the framework Solar Heating and Cooling Programme of the International Energy Agency Task 51 “Solar Energy in Urban Planning”, case studies from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were collected and analyzed through a comparative approach. The cases were first classified based on their urban characterization (existing and new urban areas) and then compared within the same country or in a cross-country perspective according to three areas of interest (i.e., Scale and planning process, Legislation and planning process, Targets and goals). The comparisons follow a common template of five sections describing the role of the involved stakeholders and highlighting challenges, barriers, and opportunities for the deployment of active solar systems and passive solar strategies. Both technical and non-technical aspects are considered. Among the technical aspects, the focus is on the adoption of solar energy strategies (e.g., solar accessibility, daylighting), the estimation of solar potential and energy generation. Regarding the non-technical aspects, the focus is on identifying barriers and challenges for the adoption of solar systems in relation to national and local legislation. The findings show that municipalities can have a crucial role in facilitating the adoption of solar energy solutions in cities by embracing ambitious visions and storytelling, as well as being directly financially involved as owners or subsidizing bodies. The findings also demonstrate the value of the use of indicators to evaluate the performance of masterplans, the combination of analogue and digital tools in the design process, and the performance of solar simulations from early stages to foster awareness among the involved stakeholders. Despite these positives, the Scandinavian legislation on solar energy utilization in the urban context still displays fragilities, making the creation of guidelines a pressing need. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Photovoltaic Technology in Northern Europe)

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Graphical abstract

34 pages, 1312 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceReview

Review on the PV Hosting Capacity in Distribution Networks

by Samar Fatima, Verner Püvi and Matti Lehtonen

Energies 2020, 13(18), 4756; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13184756 - 11 Sep 2020

Cited by 62 | Viewed by 5793

Abstract

The increasing penetration of Photovoltaic (PV) generation results in challenges regarding network operation, management and planning. Correspondingly, Distribution Network Operators (DNOs) are in the need of totally new understanding. The establishment of comprehensive standards for maximum PV integration into the network, without adversely impacting the normal operating conditions, is also needed. This review article provides an extensive review of the Hosting Capacity (HC) definitions based on different references and estimated HC with actual figures in different geographical areas and network conditions. Moreover, a comprehensive review of limiting factors and improvement methods for HC is presented along with voltage rise limits of different countries under PV integration. Peak load is the major reference used for HC definition and the prime limiting constraint for PV HC is the voltage violations. However, the varying definitions in different references lead to the conclusion that, neither the reference values nor the limiting factors are unique values and HC can alter depending on the reference, network conditions, topology, location, and PV deployment scenario. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Photovoltaic Technology in Northern Europe)

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