Acciona, a Spanish renewable energy and infrastructure company, has started testing flexible organic solar PV modules on a wind turbine to generate energy for the turbine’s internal electricity consumption.
In a report on Renew Economy’s website, the company is depicting the move as “a pioneering solution at the global level in the field of hybridization between wind and photovoltaic power”. The action would also enable Acciona to analyse the performance of the organic panels and their application to enhance the efficiency of wind turbines.
One hundred twenty flexible solar panels have been put up on a Nordex-Acciona Windpower AW77/1500 wind turbine at the 36-megawatt Breña Wind Farm in Spain. These solar panels are allocated at eight various heights and occupy approximately 60 metres of the tower’s surface area.
The panels are reportedly devised to generate the energy required by the wind turbine’s internal systems during operation and shutdown mode as well. The hybrid mix could lead to better and greater wind turbine efficiency.
The Energy Innovation Director of Acciona, Belen Linares, stated, “The hybridization project in Breña means the optimization of the use of space for renewable energy production and it will enable us to test the efficiency of organic photovoltaics, a technology that we believe has one of the best improvement curves in terms of technological efficiency. That is why we have decided to pilot it.”
The solar PV modules, known as Heliatek HeliaSol 308-5986, have a total capacity of 9.36 kWp and measure in at only 1 millimetre thick, with a surface area of 5,986 x 308 mm.
The article also describes what the panels use and their advantages. “The panels use carbon as the raw material for their construction and provide significant structural flexibility, making them adaptable to a number of different types of surfaces. The panels also boast lower maintenance costs, consume less energy during manufacture, and can be completely recycled. The downside, of course, is that they are still not quite as efficient as their silicon cousins.”
The test project is being observed and monitored with a view to analyzing it under real conditions from the angle of energy production and degradation of the solar modules as well.
For the complete report, read the article here.
