Abstract
•A new approach is presented for improving the solar panel’s output power.•The effect of the pyramidal covers on the solar panel voltage has been studied at different conditions.•Results confirm that, the pyramidal cover enhance the solar panel output voltage by 4.2%.•A mathematical model is presented to describe the experimental results.
A new approach is presented to enhance the solar radiation intensity incident over the solar panel by using a transparent cover of pyramidal shapes. The pyramidal cover shape is manufactured of Polymethylmethacrylate dielectric material. The normal height of each pyramid is considered as a ratio of the base length. This ratio is considered in the present study to be 0.5, 1, and 1.5. The effect of the pyramidal covers on the solar panel voltage has been studied at different conditions using wireless sensitive radiation sensor. The experimental results confirm that the pyramidal cover shape causes the improvement to the solar panel output voltage by 4.2% when covering all the panel with pyramids of R = 1 with a light incidence angle of 90o when the light rays come parallel to the panel surface. This improvement is found to decrease when covering fewer areas of the solar panel, which leads to fewer incidence angles. Furthermore, it is found that the distance between the light source and the panel is proportional to the output voltage improvement ratio compared to the panels output voltage without pyramidal cover. A mathematical model has been presented to prove the concept of increasing the electric and magnetic fields of the incident radiation from the sun in presence of the transverse transparent barrier. Moreover, a mathematical ray tracking model is presented and validated by a maximum relative error of 14.8%.