fairfolio
Saved Projects

Climate vs. Energy Output: The Effect of Temperature on the Productivity of Solar Panels

CSEF · 2014 Alternative Energy (Junior Division Only) Honorable_mention Award

Kai Y. Kato · Miraleste Intermediate School, Rancho Palos Verdes, Los Angeles County

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective of this project was to find how temperature affects the power produced by solar panels. The purpose was to see if panels in different climates have varying results. For example, one could see whether it is smarter to place a solar array in the arctic versus the desert. Also, companies that provide solar for houses could more accurately calculate the number of panels needed to power homes in different climates. The hypothesis was that a cold panel would work best. Methods/Materials For this experiment, three photovoltaic panels were set up in three environments consisting of a plastic tub and an acrylic cover. One received heat from a heat gun, one was cooled by dry ice, and another was left alone to be tested as a control. The panels were left out in direct sunlight and results were tested for each panel by a multimeter in intervals of thirty minutes. The cold environment was kept at a temperature of 0 degrees Celsius, the hot one was constant at 40 degrees Celsius, and the normal was kept at 25 degrees Celsius. Results The average wattage for the cold panel was 0.2164 watts, the hot one was 0.1531 watts, and the control was 0.1751 watts. The P-value of these results was 0.014, making a definite difference in the amount of wattage produced by each panel. The cooled panel worked about 40% better than the heated panel. Conclusions/Discussion Through the experimentation the null hypothesis is rejected. Therefore, the results support the alternate hypothesis: the cooled panel works the best. The solar panels in a cold climate work the most efficiently.

Summary statement

Solar panels produce different amounts of energy at different temperatures, and this information could lead to smarter placement and calculation of photovoltaic cells.

Help received

Father helped design display.

Awards (1)

  • Honorable Mention

Competition history

  • CSEF 2014 Alternative Energy (Junior Division Only) · Entry J0215

Resources

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

Source: California Science & Engineering Fair public projects

Save projects to your library

Sign in with Google to keep track of projects you find interesting, organized into folders. An account also raises your daily allowance for “Has this been done?”, and lets you create a key for the MCP server with a much higher limit than anonymous use. Browsing stays public.

Continue with Google