Assessment of aerodynamic force coefficients on different solar panels by LES simulations

Amidst the pressing concern of global warming, transitioning to clean energy like solar power became imperative. It requires innovative approaches to enhance the efficiency of solar panels while keeping low the manufacturing and installation costs. This is the goal of the present industrial-research project of which this paper discusses the results of one stage. Here, the aerodynamic performance of three solar panel designs (flat, dual-tilted and tetra) is investigated by means of large-eddy simulations (LES) for two angles of attack θ = 0° and θ = 45°. The LES results in terms of lift and drag coefficients (CL and CD) are validated with the corresponding wind-tunnel (WT) results and the Cp distribution on each panel is further analysed. The analysis shows that the conventional flat panel exhibits larger CL and CD values compared to the novel dual-tilted and tetra panels.