Study of the use of Organic Photovoltaics in the Tube Bus Stations of Curitiba

Abstract

The Curitiba tube stations are bus stations with many advantages for the passenger. They are a city’s postal card. The “Estação de Pesquisa Tubo de Ensaio'' is an interdisciplinary project in the polytechnic campus of UFPR where 28 OPVs were applied to test their energy generation use as an own station support. Organic solar cells, or OPVs, are solar panels based on semiconductor polymers. An important OPVs analysis parameter is the Power Conversion Efficiency, PCE, which is a ratio between the maximum exiting power and the incident light power. This parameter is obtained by a measured current per tension (JxV) curve of an OPV. JxV measurements are made to follow up many factors' performances, such as the influence of the seasons and weather conditions, and also the slope of solar radiation, that may interfere with the panels' performance because of a shading variation by the trees close to the station, besides the own degradation on time. To analyze the panels, the efficiency of the OPVs were calculated through distinct dates: two for each season, one old and a recent one, and in different sets of OPVs, one of them more subject to the shading through the year.