Design and Feasibility of Thin-film on Landfills

Design and Feasibility of Thin-film on Landfills: Case study of VBM landfill in Maasvlakte, Rotterdam

Chandrashekar, L.

Smets, A. (mentor)

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Sustainable Energy Technology

2017-05-30

Solar landfills are an emerging and promising concept in which PV systems are installed on closed landfills to combine renewable energy production with efficient use of contaminated land. This study focuses on such an application on the VBM (Verwerking Bedrijfsafvalstoffen Maasvlakte) landfill in Maasvlakte, Rotterdam. The PAS (PV Afdichting op Stortplaatsen) project was setup on the landfill to develop an approved model of a PV integrated landfill cover. This project involves a field test performed on the south slope of the VBM landfill to test the feasibility of two types of PV integrated landfill covers: the ‘flexible geo-PV solution/HyET system’ consisting of a white TPO (Thermoplastic polyolefin) with flexible HyET thin film modules glued on top of it and the ‘glass PV solution/ Soltronergy system’ consisting of Mitsubishi glass encapsulated thin film modules mounted on a steel anchoring frame. The purpose of this research was to analyze the results from the field test, model them in PVsyst and design a large scale PV plant on the south slope of the VBM landfill. The results from the field test concluded that the HyET system was more feasible for the application on the VBM landfill. A detailed model of the two systems was made in PVsyst. The default model parameters for PV modules and module temperatures were checked for suitability to the measured value and then optimized separately. The final optimized models were validated with the data measured on the field test. Finally a large scale PV plant was designed to cover 7 hectares of land on the south slope of the VBM landfill using the HyET thin film modules. Simulations for the design were done in PVsyst using the optimized model of the HyET modules. The final design for the PV plant consisted of 20160 HyET 55 Wp modules, capable of producing annual energy output of 1110 MWh/year.The energy produced from the PV plant is planned be used for the operation of the water treatment plant on the east side of the landfill. The total energy consumed by the water treatment plant is 1256 MWh/year. On an annual basis, the energy produced by the PV plant can cover 88% of the consumption.

thin film
PV system design
Landfills

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:369a8886-ff9a-45b1-95bc-e25f30b5d5cc

2020-05-31

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2017 L. Chandrashekar