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29th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2150-2153, Wind loads must be taken into account for the design of any outdoor structure. For solar trackers, the analysis of the wind loads presents a number of challenges as the existing, officially released tracker standards do not provide sufficient guidelines regarding how wind loads should be calculated and which assumptions should be applied. Building standards such as the Eurocode or US Building Code do not relate specifically to solar trackers and could result in overdesign. The IEC 62817 (Design Qualification For Solar Trackers) is in the final draft stage and addresses the issue of determining the winds loads on solar trackers. Three methods are described: wind tunnel analysis, CFD analysis, and an equation based calculation. This paper provides a comparison of the wind load results obtained using the IEC 62817 draft, wind tunnel tests and CFD analyses.

27th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 137-141, The standardization of the Power Rating methods of CPV modules and systems is a great challenge which is currently being discussed in the WG7-TC82 of the IEC committee (IEC62670 draft). This paper covers the key issues for the Outdoor Power Rating of CPV modules and systems. A first approach is to make restrictive filtering to the surrounding conditions while making the measurements. This approach results in very low dispersion in the CSOC Power calculations, around a 3%, but then very few days are suitable for carrying out the characterization. Perhaps, it could be acceptable in the Power Rating of CPV modules but it is not suitable for rating CPV systems once they are installed, when the main goal is to carry out a short term characterization to determine the real power installed in the CPV plant according to the contractual conditions. Therefore, this work proposes an alternative solution that will permit making a more relaxed filtering to the ambient conditions, increasing then the suitable days for making an Outdoor Power Rating of a CPV system. It is proposed to use an equivalent normal irradiance measurement spectrally corrected by using a Tri-band Spectro-heliometer. Also, a solution for dealing with the thermal management of a CPV system is being tested based in making a correlation of the module temperature with the ambient conditions with an outdoor thermal characterization of the technology. What has been shown is that, using this methodology for calculating the CSOC Power of a CPV system, results in a dispersion of ±2.4% using the Tri-band-Spectro-heliometer, smaller than the one obtained with a Pyrheliometer that it is of ±4.5%. Currently, this methodology is being tested with several technologies with different designs to prove its capability as a standard method for rating CPV modules and systems with an acceptable uncertainty.

27th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 4306-4315, A PhotoVoltaic (PV) hybrid system combines PV with other forms of electricity generation, usually a diesel generator. However, a concentrating PhotoVoltaic (CPV) hybrid system substitutes the PV generator for a CPV generator. The system presented in this paper uses CPV as the main generator in combination with a storage system and the grid. The system obtains energy form the CPV and storage system on normal usage. If this energy is not enough, the system takes energy from the grid, which acts as a backup power supply. The load of the system consists of an air conditioning system of an office building. This paper presents the results obtained from the first months of operation of the CPV Hybrid System installed at Instituto de Sistemas Fotovoltaios de Concentración (ISFOC) facilities together with exhaustive simulations in order to model the system behaviour and be able to improve the selfconsumption ratio and the life of the batteries.

26th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 664-669, The comparison of outdoor and indoor measurements has always been challenging in PV. In CPV is still more critical because more factors, like meteorological, optical properties, misalignments…, affect to the modules behavior. There is still no standard procedure to perform the power rating of a CPV module, the IEC committee is now working in the creation of a draft of this standard (IEC 62670). In this way, very hard efforts in research are being done to minimize uncertainties and test times to determine the suitable rating procedure to use that represent or capture the actual performance of the different CPV technologies. The main objective of this work is to test the different proposals of procedures for outdoor and indoor measurements, based in the IEC-62670 standard draft. The results are analyzed in order to validate the procedures, looking for the minimal uncertainty in the determination of the power. The main result is that there are characterization procedures that are delivering good results when the technology is well known and the ambient conditions limited during the measurements, if not some non linearity effects could appear in the performance of some CPV modules.

26th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 4029-4033, The Instituto de Sistemas Fotovoltaicos de Concentración (ISFOC), on its aim to contribute towards the Concentration Photovoltaic (CPV) development, has designed and installed a CPV Hybrid System for self-consumption. The CPV technology used in the installation is the Daido Steel DACPV-150W25 modules mounted on a high accuracy tracker. The purpose of this installation is to reduce the energy consumption of the air-conditioning system of the ISFOC headquarters. This is not a typical stand-alone, self-consumption system; it is a Hybrid installation and it is going to be deeply analyzed to test the suitable of CPV as an input of this kind of installations. This hybrid system has two energy inputs; the first one is a CPV generator while the secondary input to the system is the electrical grid of ISFOC building, as backup power supply. The energy management of the system and the coupling of all components are held on the AC side. The CPV generator offers its maximum energy to the system, which is used directly to the consumption of the airconditioning system or it is stored into batteries for energy supply during nights, cloudy times or high consumption periods. This installation it is going to be used by researchers for study and development of this kind of installations, and is suitable for future extensions and/or modifications.

25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition / 5th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, 6-10 September 2010, Valencia, Spain; 4483-4486, ISFOC is an R&D institute which is fostering the industrialization of Concentration Photovoltaic (CPV) technologies. With this purpose ISFOC is completing the installation of 3 MW of CPV power plants from a range of available and developing technologies and in various locations. In this paper are presented all verifications and checking process carried out by ISFOC prior to the starting-up of a 100 kW CPV installation in order to assure quality and reliability. Every installed component is evaluated taking into account these verifications; specifically, if they fulfil with the health & safety requirements and with the ruling normative and technical specifications (REBT, UNE Normative, etc…). This evaluation will show up as well any faults or hidden defects of the construction that may occur. Hence, common faults found during the visual inspection are described and classified in several groups, depending on the risk level: Faults affecting acceptance process (related to health and safety requirements), Faults to be solved in up to six moths and Faults in a follow-up process (these problems affect warranty period and future maintenance contracts).

25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition / 5th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, 6-10 September 2010, Valencia, Spain; 1008-1011, Following the accumulated installation of around 20 MW of CPV in the world, the performance results are to be analyzed and compared with the traditional PV installations. This paper describes the status of CPV installations, providing the number of the plants currently on sun and in progress. We also show the results in the ISFOC’s CPV plants together with other location in Spain. These results are compared with the production of traditional PV plants.

25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition / 5th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, 6-10 September 2010, Valencia, Spain; 4733-4736, ISFOC is a research and development institute which is fostering the industrialization of Concentration Photovoltaics (CPV) technologies. Actually ISFOC counts with 1.1 MW of CPV plants grid-connected (another 0.9 MW will be connected in the next few months) mounted with different kind of inverters. In operation since September 2008, the database of the different installations monitoring system supports these results. Also, as built projects provided by the CPV installers and technical specifications provided by the electrical components manufacturers have been taking into account for the analysis. The calculations present only the electrical part of the installations, from the concentrators output to the energy meter input. A comparison between the electrical losses of the most common inverters typologies in a CPV plant is developed.

24th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, 21-25 September 2009, Hamburg, Germany; 159-164, ISFOC is achieving its goal of making installations of CPV technologies up to 3MW. We are carrying out the acceptance of all the installations, determining the Nominal Power of each Plant. For this purpose we have developed a procedure to obtain the Nominal Power of the Plant. This Nominal Power is calculated at the Standard Test Conditions (STC) of ISFOC (850W/m2 and 60ºC for the cell temperature). This rating of the Plant is made in two steps; first the DC Power is calculated by measuring the I-V Curves of the concentrators and translating the results to the STC, after a control of the energy generated by the plant is done to calculate the AC power. We can advance that all the results are reaching the expected values. Also, for the time since we have the connection to the grid, we have made the first analysis to the real performance of these plants. From this analysis we can extract that the plants are working really good, reaching an average value for the efficiency of the complete plant of 20%.

24th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, 21-25 September 2009, Hamburg, Germany; 3818-3822, The main objective of the national project “Espectro Solar” is the selection and installation of appropriate spectroradiometers to measure the solar spectrum at three different locations in Spain and to provide a reliable database of direct and global solar spectral data. Within this work, the preliminary results of the project focusing on long-term measurements of the solar spectrum in several Spanish locations are discussed. The measurements were obtained from devices which were installed in Seville with Abengoa Solar New Technologies (ASNT) and Concentrix Solar. In Puertollano, the solar spectrum measurement system by the Instituto de Sistemas Fotovoltaicos de Concentración (ISFOC) is presented. And finally one system is investigated by the Instituto de Energía Solar (IES) in Madrid. A set of guidelines that describe how to select suitable equipment for long-term outdoor measurements is introduced. The verification processes of the corresponding equipments, carried out by the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA), are explained. Finally a considerable improvement of Concentrix Solar's FLATCON® module efficiency is reported, caused by the reduction of spectral losses.

23rd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, 1-5 September 2008, Valencia, Spain; 903-908, The Institute for Concentration Photovoltaic Systems (ISFOC) has been established in Castilla La Mancha – central Spain – in order to promote the industrialisation of Concentration Photovoltaic (CPV) technology. With this aim, ISFOC is financing the installation of a number of CPV power plants totalling 3MW and its research lines are being implemented and identified with the purpose of accomplishing our goals and assisting the CPV industrial communities.

23rd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, 1-5 September 2008, Valencia, Spain; 146-150, ISFOC has selected three CPV companies with different technologies, in order to provide with the following power in Puertollano; 200kW by Solfocus (from USA), 200kW by Concentrix-Solar (from Germany), and 400kW by Isofoton (from Spain). The construction works started by middle of October 2007 and finished on August 2008, waiting for the connection to the grid. The purpose of this paper is to present the evolution of the construction works and the problems detected and also the procedure developed by ISFOC for the acceptance of CPV plants. Up to this moment ISFOC is working in the acceptance of the plants, rating the installed power. We can conclude that the results obtained are satisfactory for all the interested parts, because the DC Nominal Power determined for the accepted plants is always reaching the expected value. The CPV rating procedure is being validated with the changes introduced by the experience acquired.