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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

System design of a photovoltaic flat-panel applications experiment at Busch Gardens, Tampa, Florida. Final report

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:5398076

The detailed system design for a photovoltaic roof shingle module installation at Busch Gardens, Tampa, FL, (also known as the Dark Continent) is discussed. This installation of 4312 shingle solar cell modules of a second-generation design, which was developed under this contract, produces 29.5 kW of peak output at 237 Vdc under Standard Operating Conditions (SOC) with an NOCT at 61/sup 0/C. With a total gross roof area of 330.7 m/sup 2/, this installation yields an areal specific power output of 89.2 watt/m/sup 2/ at SOC. The system which uses an improved, low loss direct-coupled, line-commutated inverter controlled to operate the solar array maximum power operating point, delivers 208Y/120 volt, 3 phase ac in parallel with the Busch Gardens distribution network. The calculated annual ac energy m/sup 2/. The resulting overall system conversion efficiency of 9.2% is considered high for a system using large area circular solar cells.

Research Organization:
General Electric Co., Philadelphia, PA (USA). Valley Forge Space Center
DOE Contract Number:
AC04-78ET23056
OSTI ID:
5398076
Report Number(s):
DOE/ET/23056-1
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English