Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Rooftop solar power
Summary
A rooftop solar power system, or rooftop PV system, is a photovoltaic (PV) system that has its electricity-generating solar panels mounted on the rooftop of a residential or commercial building or structure. The various components of such a system include photovoltaic modules, mounting systems, cables, solar inverters and other electrical accessories.
Rooftop mounted systems are small compared to utility-scale solar ground-mounted photovoltaic power stations with capacities in the megawatt range, hence being a form of distributed generation. Most rooftop PV stations are Grid-connected photovoltaic power systems. Rooftop PV systems on residential buildings typically feature a capacity of about 5–20 kilowatts (kW), while those mounted on commercial buildings often reach 100 kilowatts to 1 Megawatt (MW). Very large roofs can house industrial scale PV systems in the range of 1–10 Megawatts.
The urban environment provides a large amount of empty rooftop spaces and can inherently avoid the potential land use and environmental concerns. Estimating rooftop solar insolation is a multi-faceted process, as insolation values in rooftops are impacted by the following:
Time of the year
Latitude
Weather conditions
Roof slope
Roof aspect
Shading from adjacent buildings and vegetation
There are various methods for calculating potential solar PV roof systems including the use of Lidar and orthophotos. Sophisticated models can even determine shading losses over large areas for PV deployment at the municipal level.
Components of a rooftop solar array:
The following section contains the most commonly utilized components of a rooftop solar array. Though designs may vary with roof type (e.g. metal vs shingle), roof angle, and shading concerns, most arrays consist of some variation of the following components
Solar Panels produce carbon free electricity when irradiated with sunlight. Often made of Silicon, solar panels are made of smaller solar cells which typically number 6 cells per panel. Multiple solar panels strung together make up a solar array.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.