Experimental study of meteorological effects on solar spectrum applied to predict different photovoltaic technologies

M.S. University of Hawaii at Manoa 2010.Includes bibliographical references.The natural energy is the most popular and promising resource to use nowadays since the entire world is facing the energy crisis. Renewable energy resources will be an increasingly important part of power generation in the near future. They contribute much necessarily flexibility to the energy resource mix by decreasing the dependence on the traditional fossil-based resources. In addition, they assist in environment protection and reducing the emission of greenhouse gases. As one example of renewable energy utilization, photovoltaic technologies have been used for decades. Due to the increasingly electricity demand, researchers are applying themselves to increase the performance of photovoltaic in terms of efficiency, cost and utilization rate. This thesis includes two parts of experimental study; one is the measurement and analysis of the solar spectrum and another one is the characterization of spectral response of several kinds of solar cell fabricated with different materials. It is very critical to get a clear idea about the solar resource and the energy conversion potential, especially in unique climates, such as that found in Hawaiʻi.At the end of the thesis, there is a section about the modeling of a solution for green energy buildings using photovoltaic panels, applying research results from the thesis. The meaningful achievement for this experimental study is that an empirical estimation of photovoltaic energy conversion can be obtained by generalizing the characteristics of solar spectra and photovoltaic characteristics