Welcome to DSECS! Feel free to explore the materials complimentary to the course, Design of Solar Energy Conversion Systems.
Scope of Education:
Solar Energy
A ubiquitous resource available for energy conversion that supports life, industry, and society.
Course Overview:
This course establishes foundations for most solar energy conversion technologies, emphasizing the goal of solar energy engineering: to 1.) maximize the solar utility 2.) for a group of clients or stakeholders 3.) in a given locale. The course also works to explain concepts and implementation of solar conversion processes.
Context for Solar:
Solar energy conversion is a field containing systems thinking, applied science, and engineering; there are a lot of linked components in the system to keep track of in the design, implementation, and maintenance processes. To design technologies relevant to each region requires knowledge of the social context, the energy demands and economic constraints of a client or stakeholders, as well as knowledge of the specific locale or region, considering the quantity and character of the solar resource.
Contact Information if you need to contact me for questions.
Textbook in Development
Thank you for your patience, an accompanying text to the course is under development in 2012.
Standards for the Course
For the most part, this course will rely on standard solar notation established in 1978 for the journal, Solar Energy. A paper on the subject is available here. Keep in mind that our current textbook (SEEPS, by Kalogirou) does not use this standard notation in this edition. The concepts and angles are the same as Duffie and Beckman however, and this should only be a minor inconvenience to you. I will use the 1978 standard notation in our class lectures.
One major difference from the 1978 Standard: we use the conventions of Duffie and Beckman for orientation/azimuth, in that the equator is the critical spatial constraint, not North or South. As such, the solar azimuth or collector azimuth is divided into negative (-0-180 degrees) for East, pre-noon directions; and positive (+0-180 degrees) for West, post-noon angles. This convention applies equally for both the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
Again, the basis for the center of orientation (zero) is the equator, about which the sun's apparent declination oscillates. There is no reason for a prioritization of north or south, given solar technology developments in both hemispheres, and a need for a uniform methodology. However, the choice of basis affects the form of the spherical trigonometric algorithms developed to calculate the angles of incidence.
Recommended Texts
- A Golden Thread: 2500 Years of Solar Architecture and Technology, by K. Butti and J. Perlin
- One of my favorite solar texts that is sadly out of print, Butti and Perlin give solar energy context and history. This is not a text of calculations, and describes solar developments over the millenia. I have learned from John Perlin that a second edition may be in the works!
- Solar Engineering of Thermal Processes, by J. A. Duffie and W. A. Beckman
- This is the standard text that many of us in the field learned from. It has everything you are curious about in it (largely "thermal"), but can be quite challenging text to search for that one particular formula you were once familiar with.
- Solar Energy Engineering: Processes and Systems, by S. A. Kalogirou
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We are currently using this text in the course. At Penn State, this textbook is available for Chapter by Chapter reading online as PDF files. Go to University Libraries Home, and use the Lion Search for "soteris kalogirou" (the author). Choose the link that is from Science Direct (green and white page), not from Knovel.
While there are some challenges in the use of non-standard solar notation, this is a strong introductory text.