Geometric modeling and optimization in 3D solar cells : implementation and algorithms

Abstract

Conversion of solar energy in three-dimensional (3D) devices has been essentially untapped. In this thesis, I design and implement a C++ program that models and optimizes a 3D solar cell ensemble embedded in a given landscape. The goal is to find the optimum arrangement of these solar cells with respect to the landscape buildings so as to maximize the total energy collected. On the modeling side, in order to calculate the energies generated from both direct and reflected sunlight, I store all the geometric inputs in a binary space partition tree; this data structure in turn efficiently supports a crucial polygon clipping algorithm. On the optimization side, I deploy simulated annealing (SA). Both advantages and limitation of SA lead me to restrict the solar cell docking sites to orthogonal grids imposed on the building surfaces. The resulting program is an elegant trade-off between accuracy and efficiency.