Overview of Article

This article will go over the Solar Energy Project for Midnight Sun XIV as it stands on 6/18/2019, describing the the physics behind the system, inputs of the system, its projected outputs, and the work left TO DO.

Physics of System 

Midnight Sun is a solar car vehicle, and therefore receives most (ideally all) of its energy from the sun. This makes it imperative to understand the physical systems that underlie that power generation. 

A fuller version of this description can be found here https://www.pveducation.org/pvcdrom/properties-of-sunlight/calculation-of-solar-insolation

The first concept that needs to be understood is Solar Insolation. Solar Insolation is the measure of total electromagnetic received by an area over a period of time (typically denoted in kWh/m^2/s). As the suns position changes over the day, the total amount of solar insolation to a flat plate changes with angle of the sun. 

We must then understand array tilt. Solar Energy is maximized when the array is tilted to towards the sun, and affect the solar energy generation formulas (see above link for further treatment of the subject). For our purposes, we can treat our array, which has a range of angles, as a single tilted array, where the angle is the integral of the total angles of the area over its surface.

Lastly, we are concerned with cell efficiency. Treated more effectively in the section above, the cell efficiency is a measure of the ratio between the solar energy received by the vehicle and the amount added to the battery.

Inputs of System

We will be given latitude and longitude values, as well as the day of the year and expected 'cloudiness' (a fudge coefficient that reconciles measured solar insolation with predicted solar insolation). 

Outputs of System

We will be given back a series of instantaneous energy values, which can be queried over time for the total energy added to the car.