Simulation-based design of solar photovoltaic energy generation system for manufacturing support

Having in mind that energy is being regarded as indispensable to the socio-economic progress of developing and developed nations, where the main objective implies replacement and reduction of a major portion of the fossil fuels utilization, implementation of renewable energy technologies where natural phenomena are transformed into beneficial types of energy are becoming more and more appreciated and needed. Among renewable energy resources we know today, solar energy is the most beneficial, relatively limitless, effective, and dependable. Having this in mind, the aim of this paper is primarily to help key decision-makers understand the process when considering integration of solar energy to meet their own manufacturing energy needs, or how it is called today, to become “prosumers”. Given the aforementioned, this paper provides an overview of detailed simulation methodology for photovoltaic system sizing and design for metal-forming manufacturing system energy needs. The simulation is based on National Renewable Energy Laboratory photovoltaic performance model which combines module and inverter sub-models with supplementary code to calculate a photovoltaic power system’s hourly AC output is given a weather file and data describing the physical characteristics of the module, inverter, and array. Furthermore, the characteristic losses are calculated and presented for a fixed array photovoltaic system and illustratively given in the form of a Sankey diagram. A variety of graphical data representations are available while the most important ones are given in the study. Lastly, future research topics were filtered and briefly summarized