Design of Simulation Tools for Teaching in Photovoltaic Energy Engineering

Abstract

Software tools are used to support the development of engineering projects in different fields, including the area of renewable energies (solar photovoltaic, thermal, wind, etc.). In the field of solar energy, there are commercial programs that allow sizing the installations and evaluating their performance. Some of the most representative are PVGIS, the Photovoltaic Geographical Information System, PVSYST, a tool designed by the Energy Group of the Institute of Environmental Sciences of the University of Genova, and Censol, developed by the Spanish Center for Solar Energy Studies. This paper describes different simulation tools developed at Alcalá University in order to teach photovoltaic energy engineering. A web application is compared to other tools, such as spreadsheets and applications in Matlab environment, developed by the authors. In all the cases, the tools are focused on learning project engineering.