4 ms·
Right, wouldn't lower morning temperature be better for solar cell efficiency? It's been a long time since I took semiconductors, but I vaguely recall a decrea
by dmoy 6y ago
Right, wouldn't lower morning temperature be better for solar cell efficiency?
It's been a long time since I took semiconductors, but I vaguely recall a decrease in voltage at higher temperature.
You'd need to measure the temp of the actual cell, because it gets wonky. You can't just look at air temp.
- danans 6y agoIt would be surprising to see such huge difference in cell temperature in sun vs fog when the ambient temperature itself is about only about 60F, which is typical, or maybe even high for 7-9AM on the type of days I'm describing. Even if the cells were 80F on the sunny mornings vs 60F on the foggy ones (or a difference of roughly 10 Kelvin) that would result in about .5% to 1% drop [1] in efficiency, so I should see only slightly lower output on sunny vs foggy mornings. Instead what I see is that initial production on foggy days is several times higher than on sunny days. The only explanation I have for this is some kind of local effect where the fog reflects light that would have otherwise gone straight west in the morning down to my solar panels. 1. https://i2.wp.com/synergyfiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Efficiency_PV_vs_Temperature2.png https://i2.wp.com/synergyfiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/0...
- hinkley 6y agoMorning fog means the dew point is being crossed. If you control for temperature, as you have here, then the humidity is the deciding factor. Can a hot solar panel shed heat faster into humid air than dry air? I'll bet if we look it up that the answer is 'yes'.
- danans 6y agoEnough to cause a 2-3x increase in panel efficiency? Seems unlikely. Instead the panels must be getting more light somehow.