Journal of Ecological Engineering Received: 2019.11.

30
Revised: 2019.12.23
Volume 21, Issue 2, February 2020, pages 1–9 Accepted: 2020.01.07
Available online: 2020.01.25
https://doi.org/10.12911/22998993/116333

Troubleshooting Maintenance of Concentrated Photovoltaic System

– A Case Study

Samer As’ad1*, Mohanad Halawani1

1
Faculty of Engineering, Renewable Energy Engineering Department, Middle East University,
Amman, Jordan
* Corresponding author’s e-mail: samer.asad@hotmail.com

ABSTRACT
Concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) is a photovoltaic technology that generates electricity from sunlight. Contrary
to conventional photovoltaic systems, it uses lenses to focus the sunlight onto small, but highly efficient, multi-
junction solar cells. Two modules of CPV with a capacity of 6.4 kW (3.2 kW for each) were imported from Azur-
Space Solar Power GMBH (Germany) and installed in Middle East University, Jordan, for testing purposes as a
pilot project for this niche technology. It is worth mentioning that the installation of the units had been carried out
by the faculty members. A range of technical obstacles were encountered in the process due to unclear instruc-
tions/steps from the manufacturer. A series of maintenance techniques and corrective measures were implemented
in the system after one year of installation since the power output was unsatisfactory. Accordingly, the units were
dismantled, and various procedures were conducted in order to ensure that the conditions of the system were on
optimum level. In this paper, technical reviews and preventive setup were explained and presented.

Keywords: solar power, concentrated photovoltaic, concentrated, photovoltaic

INTRODUCTION in between the direct and indirect solar power. In

other words, CPV is the hybridization of the two
Several technologies could be used to gener- solar power systems. In CPV, concentrated solar
ate energy from the solar radiation, for instance flux (about 300 suns) is focused on highly effi-
thermal and electricity. This publication aims at cient solar cells such as the multi-junction solar
providing a guideline for fixing and maintaining cell (about 40% efficient). This results in a supe-
concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) as one of tech- rior output, many times that of the ordinary pho-
nologies that might be utilized to produce energy tovoltaics. The expensive solar materials in solar
and contribute to the energy mix to reach 20% of PV are replaced with mirrors and lenses made of
energy from renewables by 2020 as part of the cheap glass in CPV. The total reliable efficiency
strategic plan set by the Government of Jordan. of the entire system is up to 35% [Chukwuka and
Most of the solar systems on the market today Agbenyo 2014].
can be divided into two major categories: the di-
rect and the indirect solar power. The direct solar How it works?
power refers to a system that converts the solar
radiation directly to electricity using a photovol- The key principle of CPV is the use of cost-
taic (PV) cell. The indirect solar power refers to a efficient concentrating optics, usually based on
system that concentrates the sunlight first to gen- Fresnel lenses that dramatically reduce the cell
erate heat. The heat is then used to generate steam area, allowing for the use of more expensive,
and run a conventional turbine, as in the case of a high efficiency cells and potentially the cost of
concentrated solar power (CSP). The concentrat- electricity competitive with standard Photovolta-
ed photovoltaic cell is considered a technology ics technology in certain sunny areas with high

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annual Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI). The use in Figure 5. It should be noted that two units were
of optical elements to concentrate the sunlight is installed on the site, each including 8 panels with
convenient only when using very high efficiency 400 Wp for every panel. A single panel comprises
solar cells. The CPV systems can concentrate a 60 photovoltaic cells. Thus, one unit consists of
large amount of sunlight into a smaller one by ap- 480 cells that generate 3.2 kWp.
plying lenses or curved and flat mirrors as shown
in Figure 1. However, the additional costs on con- Maintaining of CPV system components
centrating optics and cooling systems made CPV
less common than non-concentrated photovoltaic After a year of installation, it was noticed
[Wiesenfarth et al. 2017, Liu 2017]. that there was an issue regarding the voltage and
The photovoltaic solar energy is based on
semiconductor materials which collect the sun-
light and convert it directly into electricity., an
electric field is created between the layers of the
semiconductor material, through the impact of
the sunlight photons. Electrical energy is created
in direct current (DC), which is then transformed
to alternating current (AC) by using Inverters.
A concentrated photovoltaics module can be
divided in two main layouts: having the concen-
trating optics in lenses (usually Fresnel lenses)
or in mirrors. The Fresnel lenses shown in Fig-
ure 2 can be made of a thin film silicon-on-glass,
known as acrylic glass or transparent thermoplas-
tic. A mirror can be made of glass or plastic cov-
ered by a thin layer of Aluminum or silver pro-
tected against oxidation. There are many different
considerations that lead the designer toward one
layout or the other. However, the installed CPV
in the site is based on the Fresnel lens technology
[Antonini et al. 2014]. Figure 1. PV cell exposed to
concentrated solar radiation
It is worth mentioning that the installation
of the two units has been implemented by the
faculty members despite the presence of many
technical obstacles during setup due to unclear
guidelines and instructions provided in the man-
ual. The installation commenced by picking a
shade-free site, for instance, with no buildings or
trees around. Then, digging was started and the
footings were sealed to protect them from mois-
ture. Finally, concrete foundation with dimen-
sion (W: 2.5m × L: 2.5m × D: 0.9m) was laid to
support the weight of the CPV structure. In order
to fit the poles with their holes onto the anchor
rods, they had to be mounted on the foundation
properly. The sequence of processes is depicted
in Figure 3.
On the other hand, steel structure frames and
beams were assembled together. The tracking
motor was mounted on the top of the structure.
These components are responsible for holding the
movable panels of CPV as shown in Figure 4. The Figure 2. A concentrated photovoltaic
final appearance of the CPV system is illustrated optical layout.units installation

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Figure 3. Steps of building concrete foundation process

current output readings. Thus, a series of mainte- that glass is very fragile and might break spon-
nance procedures were conducted by dismantling taneously. In fact, this process took a lot of time
all the CPV components in order to troubleshoot and had to be performed carefully, due to the fact
everything related to the panel operation. The that the Fresnel layer is made from thin transpar-
main parts that were fixed are: ent thermoplastic rubber. Figure 8 shows part of
the Fresnel layer used in the CPV modules. Mul-
a) Concentrators
tiple layers of rubber and silicon were used to re-
The most commonly used concentrators are seal the panels in a better way to avoid the issue
concentric mirrors or lenses with the magnifying of water leakage inside the panels recurring under
effect that concentrate the sunlight on the photo- rainy conditions.
voltaic cell as shown in Figure 6. However, when
the units of the system were completely disman- b) Photovoltaic cell
tled for maintenance purposes, and the sealing The photovoltaic cell is situated in the fo-
of silicon on the edges of panels were removed, cal axis of the reflective or of the lens and it is
large quantities of water that accumulated inside mounted on the bottom of panels. The photovol-
the panels, as well as a certain amount of con- taic cells are responsible for transforming the
densed water trapped between the layer of Fres- sunlight into electricity. The PV cell is composed
nel film and the glass were found, as illustrated in of two or three layers of different materials (e.g.
Figure 7. GaInP/GaInAs/Ge) each part optimized to con-
The best scenario for eliminating the water vert all the electromagnetic spectrum of sunlight
and moisture content was accomplished by ap- into direct current [Ceballos 2015]. The photovol-
plying heat as well as using a syringe to suck the taic cells are connected in series and part of them
water out from between the layers, due to the fact is illustrated in Figure 9.

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Figure 4. Steel structure of CPV

Figure 5. One of the CPV units installed in the site

Figure 6. Top view of panels (Concentrator lenses)

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Figure 7. Water leakage between glass and Fresnel lens

Figure 8. Fresnel layer made from transparent thermoplastic rubber

Figure 10. The following immediate corrective

actions were carried out:
•• Cleaning every cell from dust and fixing the
external wiring connection. Figure 11 shows
a cleaned cell.
•• Replacing the damaged photovoltaic cell with
a new one imported from the manufacturer.
•• Testing and validating each cell separately in
order to guarantee that the output voltage is
3.2 V, as designed by the manufacturer.

Figure 12 illustrates how the testing proce-

dure is being carried out on the photovoltaic cells.
This procedure was repeated for the installed two
units, eight panels for each. In other words, the
process was conducted on 960 photovoltaic cells.

Figure 9. Photovoltaic cells c) CPV Software

The CPV unit is controlled through a Rasp-
It should be noted that when the silicon seal- berry-pi controller. This offers two different op-
ing was removed, some photovoltaic cells were erational options; manual and automatic. In the
found damaged due to the water leakage inside manual mode, the controller can be directly fed
panels for long time, while some of them were with orders through an Ethernet connection to a
found calcified; moreover, rust accumulated on PC and the entire structure can be rotated hori-
the wiring connection between cells, as shown in zontally and vertically on command. This manual

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approach is essential in setting up the system and

calibrating it before transferring to the automatic
sun-tracking mode. In the latter case, the control-
ler operates based on the pre-recorded tables that
correlate time to the Sun-location.

The CPV module has no irradiation-sensing

element installed despite having the potential to
have one built-in. The manual calibration poses
a challenge as it requires a visual-based process
in which the operator needs to feed the control-
ler software with arbitrary elevation and azimuth
parameters, and then observe the focal point of
the irradiation. By identifying how much the fo-
cal point falls off the PV cell, the operator then
adjusts the elevation and azimuth through the
software. The full procedure needs to be repeat-
ed several times until a reasonable alignment
Figure 10. Calcified photovoltaic cells is achieved.

Figure 11. Photovoltaic cells after cleaning

Figure 12. Testing and validating results of Photovoltaic cells after cleaning

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It has been observed in the course of monitor-

ing the CPV system that this procedure needs to
be repeated roughly on a monthly basis to ensure
the optimal performance. It is worth pointing out
that the Raspberry-pi acquires an IP address al-
lowing remote monitoring and control of the sys-
tem. This can be exceptionally useful under rough
weather conditions when no operator is available
on site and the system is to be adjusted into a less
hazardous setting.
d) Solar Tracking System
The CPV system contains two motors to fol-
low the Sun, the first being the linear actuator mo-
tor, which is a machine responsible for realizing
the vertical component of movement necessary in
tracking the Sun. The actuator operates by trans-
forming the rotational movement into a linear one.
This actuator is shown in Figure 13. The second
is the circular motion motor, which is a machine
responsible for rotating the entire system. This
mechanism could involve the use of a gearbox as
is the case in the CPV system installed at MEU.
Gear boxes are important, as they are essen-
tial devices found everywhere in manufactur-
ing facilities. They provide even distribution of
power and torque wherever needed to improve Figure 13. Both motors for CPV system
the productivity and profits of the manufacturing
process. Despite how ubiquitous gearboxes may constituting elements were then disassembled as
be, they require periodic maintenance to ensure shown in Figure 14. Multiple tools were required
smooth and continuous operation of the systems to take out the gearbox, including a stud (80 cm)
involved. Neglecting the routine maintenance of to remove the inner bolts; after the cover was
gearboxes could lead to grave consequences. In removed and all limit switches were dismantled
order to maintain productivity, it is necessary to from the linear housing, the electrical motor was
carry out frequent inspections and regular mainte- separated from the gearbox. A visual inspection
nance procedures. This can ultimately maximize was performed for the gear teeth inside the linear
the life span of the system. actuator gearbox. The gear teeth were found to be
However, to prevent costly repairs or down- broken as shown in Figure 15.
time, continuous maintenance is required to pre- After dismantling the gearbox (containing
clude problems before they occur. Unfortunately, three layers of gears), one layer was found to
both motors of the CPV system at MEU broke include interfaces between the metal and plastic
down. This breakdown was not due to lack of gears. The breakage occurred precisely at these
maintenance but had more to do with manufac- coupled gears. Figure 16 shows an image of the
turing problems. gears in question. An inspection was carried out
Moreover, as the CPV system has problem for gear-fatigue such as cracking or flaking, as
with both motors, the first step was to identify the well as cracks on the teeth. In one the layers, all
issues by using the auditory or tactile test, then of the plastic gears were broken. In order to solve
special diagnostic tools were utilized to under- this problem, a lathing machine was to lathe alter-
stand where the required repair was needed to native gears using Teflon which were subsequent-
solve these problems. ly installed in the gearbox as shown in Figure 16.
The linear actuator motor was dismantled af- The new gear-box is marked in yellow. The entire
ter being found not to function properly. On in- assembly was put together again with all layers
spection, it was found that the motor itself was greased. A test was then carried out to double
running but failing to move linearly. All the check that everything was running smoothly. This

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Figure 14. The linear actuator motor after dismantled

discussed previously. The problem turned out to

be in the attachment between the motor and the
gearbox, and was solved by replacing the four
coupling bolts, as the old ones were bent. The
same test was performed for this motor (as the
previous test). This showed that it was now work-
ing perfectly. Details are given in Figure 17.

CONCLUSIONS

Technical reviews and preventive mainte-

nance of CPV components were presented. The
Figure 15. Linear actuator motor Gear-box research aimed at providing a guideline for fix-
ing Concentrated Photo-voltaic which is one of
was followed by an inspection for the motor bear- the renewable energy technologies that might be
ing (the front and the rear) by using the auditory utilized to produce energy and contribute to the
or tactile test for determining fatigue on the ball energy mix in Jordan, despite the fact that this
bearing such as loose, cracking or flaking. Then a technology is niche and still young in Middle
test was carried out on the gearbox with the mo- East. The actions taken and presented in this pa-
tor attached. This showed a perfect homogeneity per were sufficient to solve the issues related to
between the motor and the gearbox. the CPV operation and to ensure hermetic sealing
For the circular motion motor, an inspec- of the panels and avoid future water leakages un-
tion was done using the auditory or tactile test as der rainy conditions.

Figure 16. Linear actuator motor Gear-box before and after lathing

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Figure 17. The circular motion motor Gear-box

Acknowledgements REFERENCES
The authors are grateful to the Middle East 1. Chukwuka, C. and Agbenyo, K. Overview of Con-
University, Amman, Jordan, for the financial sup- centrated Photovoltaic (CPV) Cells, Journal of
port granted to cover the publication fee of this Power and Energy Engineering, 2014, 2, 1–8.
research article. 2. Wiesenfarth, M., Philipps, S., and Bett, A. Current
Additionally, the authors would like to thank Status of Concentrator Photovoltaic (CPV) Tech-
Middle East University for their initiatives for nology, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
bringing the CPV systems, although this type of NREL, USA, 2017.
technology is not known in other universities or 3. Liu, Y., and Iqbal, Z. Concentrated Photovolta-
institutes. Thus, this was an opportunity to inves- ics and its techno-economic comparison with the
tigate its technology background. Precious thanks Photovoltaics, International Journal of Applied En-
for the faculty member, Dr. Awni Jayyousi, for gineering Research ISSN 0973–4562 Volume 12,
his intensive efforts in installing the units and for Number 1 (2017) pp. 68–75.
his valuable contribution in solving problems re- 4. Antonini, P., Centro1, S., Golfetto, S. and Saccà, A.
lated to CPV software. Extended thanks for stu- Concentrated photovoltaics (a case study), EPJ Web
dents, Abed Al-Rahman Al-Hourani, Mohammad of Conferences 79, 03011 (2014).
Oweesat, and Qais Abu-Asal for assisting the au- 5. Ceballos, S. Concentrated Photovoltaic Energy,
thors in dismantling the system and performing CEDRO, Empowering Lebanon with Renewable
certain maintenance tasks. Energy, 2015