1000 Islands Fluid Dynamics Meeting, 2012

WIND EFFECTS ON PHOTOVOLTAIC (PV) PANELS A CFD APPROACH

C.M. Jubayer and H. Hangan
The Wind Engineering, Energy and Environment (WindEEE) Research Institute
Western University, London, ON.

Introduction dimension of 2.48 m (B) x 7.29 m (W) x 1.65 m (H)

(Fig. 1), obtained from the specification provided by
Solar farms consist of large number of flat PV
First Solar Inc. This gives an aspect ratio (W/B) of
panels arranged in arrays and are usually developed
2.94. The inclination of the panel with the horizontal
in an open terrain to get unobstructed sunshine, due
is 25o. Two different wind directions, 0o and 180o are
to which PV panels in the farm experience higher
considered, 0o being the wind normal to the leading
wind loads and more potential damage. On the other
edge of the panel and upper surface of the panel
hand, the existing codes for estimating wind loads on
facing the oncoming flow. The computational domain
buildings/structures (NBC 2005, ASCE 7-05) do not
and mesh are created according to the COST
provide sufficient information to predict wind loads on
guidelines (Franke et al., 2007) and are generated
the ground mounted arrays of solar PV panels.
using Pointwise (Pointwise, Inc.). Dimension of the
Most of the previous works performed on wind
domain is 21H (length) x 24H (width) x 6H (height),
loading on solar collectors/PV panels mainly focused
where H is the height of the panel. The created mesh
on the panels mounted on the horizontal or inclined
has 1.7 million cells. At the domain inlet, profiles of
roof of a building (Wood et al., 2001; Kopp and Surry,
velocity and turbulence properties are obtained from
2002; Meroney and Neft, 2010; Chung et al., 2011).
ESDU (ESDU 82026, 83045) for design wind speed
Ground mounted solar panels were studied by a very
of 26 m/s at 10 m height with aerodynamics
few (Bitsuamlak et al., 2010; Shademan and Hangan,
roughness length (y0) of 0.03 m which represents an
2010). Previous studies showed a significant
open terrain. The bottom of the domain is modelled
variation of a) geometry of panels (dimension, aspect
as rough wall with roughness height and roughness
ratio of the panel), b) mounting locations (horizontal
constant provided as to be consistent with the
roof, inclined roof, ground) and c) installation
boundary layer profile.
methods (inclination angle, vertical spacing from the
surface on which the panel is installed) resulting in
different wind loads estimation.
The objective of this research is to evaluate wind
loads on the ground mounted PV panels using a
computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach with
application to PV solar farms. This study also aims to
analyze the wind flow behaviour around the PV
panels. The focus of the present study is a stand-
alone system which is a unit system of a solar farm. (a)

Methodology
In this study 3D unsteady Reynolds-Averaged
Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulation of wind flow over a W
ground mounted stand-alone PV system using Shear
Stress Transport k- (SST k-) turbulence closures (b)
is performed. The stand-alone PV system has the Figure 1: Computational model for the PV panel

Open source CFD toolbox OpenFOAM v2.0.0 (SGI
Corp.) is used for the simulation. In this study
pisoFoam, which is a transient solver for
incompressible flows that uses PISO (Pressure
Implicit with Splitting of Operators) algorithm, is
employed. Simulation has been run for 20 s of flow
-5
time with time step size of 10 s. Data for the last 15
s of flow time are used to report the results.
Results and Discussion
Streamlines of mean velocity around the panel for
both 0o and 180o wind directions are shown in Figure
2. From Figure 2(a), it can be seen that the flow
remains attached on the upper surface of the panel.
At the lower surface of the panel two separate
vortices are observed (Fig. 2a) due to the support
structure. On the other hand, for the 180o wind
direction, flow separates at the leading edge and
forms a large recirculation region rotating clockwise
on the upper surface of the panel and close to the
trailing edge, a small recirculation region rotating
counter clockwise is formed due to the roll-up of the
shear layer (Fig. 2b). For both 0o and 180o wind
directions, shedding of vortices are not observed.
This is more likely due to the RANS modelling
approach (Breuer et al., 2003). Mean pressure
coefficient (Cp) along the mid-line between two
support structures on the upper and lower surfaces of
the panel for both 0o and 180o wind directions are
compared with the experimental results obtained
from Dr. Girma Bitsuamlak by personal
communications (Fig. 3). This experiment was
Wind Wind
(a) (b)
Figure 2: Streamlines of mean wind velocity for (a) 0o
o
and (b) 180 wind directions
CFD (Upper surface)
CFD (Lower surface)
Experiment (Upper surface)
Experiment (Lower surface)
2 separated flow around a flat plate at high
Mean Cp
1 Methods in Fluids 41, 357-388.
0 Chung, K. M., Chang, K. C. and Chou, C. C., 2011,
-1
-2
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 ESDU, 1982, Strong winds in the atmospheric
b/B
(a)
1000 Islands Fluid Dynamics Meeting, 2012
CFD (Upper surface)
CFD (Lower surface)
Experiment (Upper surface)
Experiment (Lower surface)
2
Mean Cp
1
0
-1
-2
0 0.2 0.4 b/B 0.6 0.8 1
(b)
Figure 3: Mean Cp profiles along the midline of the
panel surface for wind directions of (a) 0o and (b)
180o. Here, b is the distance from the leading edge
along the breadth of the panel
conducted in the RWDI wind tunnel where a 1:20
scale model of a stand-alone system with aspect ratio
of 6.85 was placed inside the atmospheric boundary
layer (ABL)flow for open terrain. A higher mean Cp
values (magnitude) are observed for experiment
compared to CFD. These differences in mean Cp
values may be due to the differences in aspect ratios,
scaling of the experimental model, height of the panel
from the ground or the incoming flow conditions.
Conclusion
Unsteady RANS simulations of wind loading on a
ground mounted PV panel system immersed in the
atmospheric boundary layer are performed for two
different wind directions (0o and 180o). Wind flow field
and mean Cp values along the midline on the
surfaces of the panel are analyzed.
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 1000 Islands Fluid Dynamics Meeting, 2012

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