The following are Post Graduates Students in the Department of Physics
1. RITA MWENDE
Photovoltaic (PV) systems have become an indispensable source of renewable energy supply for both commercial and domestic use in many developing countries including Kenya. However, it remains difficult to fully integrate solar energy into the power grid and hence realize its full potential without proper modelling and assessment of the impact of various environmental parameters on the solar PV system performance. In this study, firstly, we performed a detailed performance analysis of a 1.5 kW PV solar system installed at the department of Physics, University of Nairobi and studied the effect of various weather parameters on the power output. Data collection was done daily between 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. EAT at 30 minutes’ interval for a period of 3 weeks. This work therefore demonstrates that variations in solar irradiance and various weather parameters such as ambient temperature and relative humidity have a strong influence on solar PV systems performance, and as an outcome, this work has developed an application that can be used in performing modelling of real-time power output and performance of PV solar systems.
Registration Number: I56/20130/2019
Student Biography: Actively involved in research on solar energy materials for renewable energy applications. Skilled in Solar panel performance analysis, installation, sizing and design. Experienced in machine learning in R and other data visualizing techniques.
Project Title: PHOTOVOLTAIC (PV) SYSTEM PERFORMANCE FORECASTING AND MODELLING USING REAL -TIME OBSERVATION AND WEATHER DATA
Degree Name: Master of Science in Physics
Degree: Masters