Real world Photovoltaic Energy Engineering

Photovoltaic solar energy has recently enjoyed a technical and economic progression achieving a high level of reliability. With the aim of obtaining a better knowledge of this type of energy by part of the students from the Electrical, Electronic and Mechanical Engineering Degrees of the School of Design Engineering ETSID in Valencia, Spain, they are offered an elective subject in which they are asked to conduct a “field practice” in which they design an isolated installation that will fully supply the house in which they live including. In addition they perform a photovoltaic installation connected to the electrical network. In both cases students must obtain market prices and find out the supply equipment commonly used. With this data they should develop a proposal similar to the one supplied to a customer requesting an installation of this kind. Hence this is a field project where factual data is required and enables students to talk to companies supplying the electrical and photovoltaic materials. These assignments include the final assessment of the cost of the power generated, so that students can identify if the final price in photovoltaic is higher or lower than the cost of electricity supplied by the electricity distribution companies.