Evaluation of five various technologies of PV panels for Si production using Sahara sand silica source

Abstract

The Sahara Solar Breeder (SSB) project is a joint Japanese-Algerian universities project to utilise the plentiful sand and solar energy in the Sahara desert. In the context of the SSB project, a Sahara Solar Energy Research Center was created at the University of Saida in Algeria. This centre is equipped with the meteorological monitoring system, the outside photovoltaic panels evaluation systems and the underground temperature measurement system. In this paper, a description of these types of equipment of this centre is presented. Also, some important data such as irradiance, temperature, energy, I–V curves and underground temperature measurement are presented and analysed. Finally, a discussion on the usefulness of these data for the SSB project will be discussed.

Keywords: Sahara Solar Breeder project, solar irradiation, air temperature, underground temperature, PV module, I–V curve