Numerical study on the sensitivity of photovoltaic panels to wind load on array layout

Abstract

Offshore floating photovoltaics began to gradually enter people's vision due to the limitation of inland land resources. However, the offshore environment is harsh, and wind load is an essential factor in floating photovoltaic design. At the same time, the photovoltaic panel will be subjected to a large wind load in strong typhoon weather, which may cause a drag-driven or lift-driven instability for offshore floating photovoltaics. In this work, the effects of wind loads on six PV array structure configurations installed on offshore floating PV platforms at high Reynolds numbers are investigated by using the computational fluid dynamics numerical method. The differences in wind load on photovoltaic panels under different layout structures are analyzed and explained, including analysis of velocity and pressure distribution, turbulence field, and lift and drag coefficient of photovoltaic panels. The results showed array b with symmetrically staggered has less sensitivity to wind direction, less lifting torque, and relatively small pressure on the surface of the photovoltaic panel, which is a potential arrangement.