The high efficiency, shadow-less and auto rotating solar PV towers developed by IIT Delhi. Source: IIT Delhi
An IIT Delhi research team, led by physicist Dalip Singh Mehta, has developed high efficiency, shadow-less (solar panels at bottom are not shadowed by the top panels) and auto rotating Solar PV towers for photovoltaic power generation in a given area throughout the day. The developed ‘non-mechanical’ and ‘mechanical’ tracking solar PV towers with reflection concentration are viable for all Indian seasons of the year with high energy density (energy per footprint area, kWh/m2).
Moreover, the ‘mechanical’ tracking Solar PV tower is portable i.e. the entire unit can be mounted on a truck, made functional and taken anywhere to generate power.
Space saving ‘non-mechanical’ and ‘mechanical’ tracking solar PV towers of 3kW and 5kW capacity, developed by the IIT Delhi scientists, are scalable to higher capacity with the concept of solar tower array (green energy field).
The solar PV towers can be useful for:
Both the systems are patented by IIT Delhi and licensed to Bengaluru and Mumbai-based EP Sunsol Private Limited for commercial installation. EP Sunsol has already deployed the developed systems at Chennai, IIT Delhi, and Navi Mumbai of 3kW, 4kW and 5kW, respectively.
“After intensive research, we succeeded in arriving at the lightweight and cost-effective novel design on mounting Solar PV towers along with high reflectivity mirrors to follow the Sun movement. Both non-mechanical and mechanical solar towers are able to generate 20-25% and 25-30% more power respectively, while utilizing only 50-60% rooftop space compared to conventional solutions,” said Mehta.
The solar panels along with high reflectivity mirrors are vertically mounted in a particular way (based on location/city) that they fall in the line-of-sight of the sun during morning, mid-day and evening hours, hence leading to high efficiency solar power generation. The mounting methodology helps to generate more power during non-peak hours of the sun, i.e. 9am to 11am and 2pm to 5pm.