Selection and dimensioning of photovoltaic harvester for wireless sensor systems

Abstract:
Photovoltaic power supply is an attractive solution to power wireless sensor systems in different environment. The proper choice of the solar cell for powering the systems depends on various parameters such as given conditions, needed energy and maximum size of the system. In this paper, we discuss the selection and dimensioning of solar cells for two different sensor system use cases: (i)in a forest and (ii) in a production hall with solely artificial light. The considered solar cell technologies are amorphous silicon and crystalline silicon. From measurements of both types of solar cells at varying irradiances, the respective performance in the two different use cases are examined. The averaged energy density delivered by the amorphous silicon solar cell is 4.4 mWh/day/cm² in a forest and 1.2 mWh/day/cm² in a production hall. In case of a monocrystalline silicon solar cell the average energy density is 6.8 mWh/day/cm² in the forest and 2.3 mWh/day/cm² in the production hall.