UNSW School of Photovoltaic & Renewable Energy Engineering
Pathway for Fair and Scientific Rating to Solar Cars – challenge by IEC TC82 PT600 team for International Standardization
Kenji Araki - University of Miyazaki


Kenji Araki, at UNSW SPREE, 31 October 2023

Kenji Araki (64Min)

University of Miyazaki

Kenji Araki speaks at UNSW SPREE

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Abstract

Solar electric vehicles (SEV) are expected to solve various issues around EVs. They use VIPV (Vehicle-integrated photovoltaic), and the expected annual market will be 50 GW/year. However, the energy yield of VIPV is not simple and is often disappointing due to hundreds of losses on the car roof that are not obvious for standard PV installations. Without solving these issues, a simple strategy of enhancing cell and module efficiency will not help, namely less effective than the optimal module design suitable to VIPV.

This seminar, at first, tries to model PV's complicated and strange behaviors (curved shape and moving around in the shading environment), targeting standardization (testing and rating). Then, it expands to the general computation method for general curved surfaces and non-uniform shading (aperture) environments. Such computation requires a shading (aperture) matrix instead of shading ratio or angle (scalar), an IAM tensor (4-Tensor) instead of an IAM curve, differential geometry description using vector expression of a unit element, instead of cosine loss by angles of the PV panel. Even the coordinate system may shift to a local coordinate system with 3D rotation instead of absolute ground coordinates. The revolution of testing, modeling, and rating methods of VIPV can be applied to other curved PV systems and new applications of PVs with non-uniform shadows. These activities are done by collaborating with scientists and testing engineers worldwide under the umbrella of IEC. We will discuss technical milestones, the timetable, and advanced designing and optimizing methods of these products.

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Brief Bio

Dr Kenji Araki was born in Nagoya, Japan. He studied electronics and undergraduate at Kyoto University, and then worked for Toshiba and Daido Steel. He received Ph.D. degree at Nagoya Institute of Technology and was a visiting researcher at Toyota Technological Institute. He was appoionted as distinguished Professor of the University of Miyazaki from 2020. Dr Araki is also the IEC TC82 PT600 (VIPV standardization) project leader and WG7 (CPV) convenor.