A Modified Halogen Solar Simulator

Many researches on the low-cost solar simulators for PV module performance testing have been carried out. However, it was found that the previous designs require improvements to address the needs of PV module performance test equipment specifically for dust impact experiments. As the dust material attaching on the surface of PV module is removed easily during experiments, module position should be kept to face upwards. This study reported results of a solar simulator developed for testing characteristics of PV modules including those contaminated with dust. Test results showed that the solar simulator worked well. Voltage input and distance of halogen lamps can be adjusted to produce various light intensities received by the examined PV module. Relative difference of maximum power output (Pmax) of an examined PV module exposed to the Sun and the developed solar simulator was about 33%. The large difference was likely contributed to human errors and non-standard equipment applied during the study.