How to build test box to show how temperature affects panel output
School project for my kids. I want to show how panel output is greater in the cold (mountain top) vs, hot (Arizona summer). They love solar, and will be future solar designers. Thx Tom
Comments
Hi Tom,
This is such a great idea and and sounds like a fun project. I hope your kids enjoy it as much as I imagine I would.
Because there are so many ways to accomplish the task of varying ambient temperature on a PV cell, we did a quick search on the web for an established experiment instead of developing an experiment in house. Our search lead to this simple, yet thorough experiment from the University of Oregon that was written for highschool students. If you need to source some of the equipment, such as a test solar cell, check out sparkfun.com - a really cool website for fun electrical toys.
The experiment linked above is a great introduction to PV cells and we recommend starting here. If you are looking to do something more detailed, please contact us to discuss potential ways of automating some of the processes.
Comments
Hi Tom,
This is such a great idea and and sounds like a fun project. I hope your kids enjoy it as much as I imagine I would.
Because there are so many ways to accomplish the task of varying ambient temperature on a PV cell, we did a quick search on the web for an established experiment instead of developing an experiment in house. Our search lead to this simple, yet thorough experiment from the University of Oregon that was written for highschool students. If you need to source some of the equipment, such as a test solar cell, check out sparkfun.com - a really cool website for fun electrical toys.
The experiment linked above is a great introduction to PV cells and we recommend starting here. If you are looking to do something more detailed, please contact us to discuss potential ways of automating some of the processes.
Thanks, Eric