Qualification - Pearson BTEC Level 5 Higher National Diploma in Engineering (Electrical Engineering)
Unit Name - Research Project
Unit Number - Unit 34
Assignment Title - Analytical techniques, Impact of research experience and communication approaches in Research Project
Learning Outcome 1: Examine the analytical techniques used to work on all stages of the project and strategies required to overcome the challenges involved in a research project).
Learning Outcome 2: Reflect on the impact the research experience could have in enhancing personal or group performance within an engineering context).
Learning Outcome 3: Explore the communications approach used for the preparation and presentation of the research project's outcomes).
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Purpose: To examine the analytical techniques used by the trainee to work in all stages of the project and strategies required to overcome the challenges involved in this research project. It is also intended to allow trainees to reflect on the impact the research experience could have in enhancing personal or group performance within an engineering context. Further, this assignment aims to explore the communication approach used for presentation of the outcomes of this research project.
Conduct a literature review from various sources of information such as books, reports, research articles published in conferences and journals, other published materials (hard or electronics copies), etc. Published theses/project reports will be more useful to start your research on a topic relevant to your research problem.
Solution: Literature Review
The Royal Society of Chemistry has published a literature article based on the potential induced degradation problems in PV modules. Here the discussion continues with the positives of a sustainable energy production with the help of solar panels. This provides clean energy which actually prevents various types of global pollutions like SO2, CO2, CO emission, overuse of natural mineral water (Luo et al. 2017). As the global pollution increases, the scientists and the researchers are tending towards photovoltaic modules. Nowadays, the PV modules are sharing more than 16% of total energy production. Most of the schools, colleges, universities, industrial areas run with the help of solar panels. Not only are those, but also PV panels active in those remote places where other energy sources are yet to be enacted. The failure rates or the degradation rates are comparatively lowers than any other energy producing technologies. Still, there are some significant issues which create a backward friction against this technological progress. Potential induced degradation (PID) effect is one of the most highlighted issues which create some fundamental failures inside a solar panel module.
Firstly, there is a need to know how a PV module works. This is nothing but a connection between many solar panels which is done is a serial way. This builds up electrical energy from the solar heat and converts it to DC. Various types of inverters are used to project the energy in a manner. Some electrical potential difference is occurred while producing electricity which later considered as PID effect (Barbato et al. 2017). As the technology of solar panel is not that cheap so the loss of energy needs to be sorted out in near future. The more the PV panels are used, the more the PID effect occurs. Due to this reason, a higher quality of inverter is needed to maximize the output from the PV panels. The current leakage occurs in between the string modules and the active circuit. The loss of energy sometimes appears with a bulk amount which creates a great financial loss as well.
Initially, the PID effect does not take place inside a PV module. But the output capacity gradually increases as the aging starts for the solar panels. According to the researchers, there is several factors work for the degradation (Weber et al. 2017). One of the major reasons for degradation is the packaging methods. The environmental conditions are also responsible for the PID effect. Places where the environment is not friendly enough, faces major PID problems for the existing PV modules.
You have to critically analyse the utilised sources of information and review the strategies used to overcome the challenges you encountered in the stages of literature review and data analysis.
Solution: Strategies used to overcome challenges
Several challenges had been faced within the process of literature review that was to be overcome for the successful completion of research. The most common issue had been repetition of information which is not expected in a proper literature review. Several researchers covey their ideas regarding the same issue and finally it give rise to an effective outcome. As the process of literature review focused on a particular topic chances of repetition remains high. Due to this reason, it was made sure that each different aspect of the literature process remains different from one another (Adeh et al. 2019). Most of the research articles try to discuss the issue in an elaborative way. Due to this reason, while making a review of literature, sometimes it becomes difficult to identify the issues properly from those elaborative texts. It needs to be made sure that the reader has the basic idea about the research domain and can grasp readily what is being said. At the same time, after going through a number of researches works it remains difficult to develop a sense as the issues remains very much interconnected to each other.
While making an elaborative literature review sometimes it becomes difficult to make sure that the selected works remain relevant to the particular research topic chosen. There can be similarities in the domain of research but the approach taken by the researcher can be less relevant that it would have been expected. In order to reduce this problem, an effective selection criteria can be developed that would allow the researcher to identify the major focus area of a research and them make choice accordingly. While making selection there can be some bias issues. For example an individual can show an inclination towards some particular issues while making selection but at the same time it can be less effective for the sake of literature review process (Aristidou et al. 2017). While making an elaborative review sometimes it becomes difficult to maintain a critical approach and the discussions tend to be descriptive in nature. In such cases, the outcomes of the review process seem to be extensive but it remains less effective in the further stages of a research. In order to deal with this issue, some standard tools can be implemented that allows a reviewer to keep an analytical approach intact in all the stages of this process.
Sources of literature
Different sources of literature remain available and a researcher needs to identify the effectiveness of those sources according to the chosen domain of a research. As per the conventions of research approaches, journal articles are said to be the most reliable sources as it always provides some issues with regard to some standard research procedures. Due to this reason, present review process had considered maximum number of journal articles to provide different aspects related to the selected domain of research. At the same time, there can be peer reviewed articles, papers, books and online sources which also provide a good amount of information related to a research process (Yun et al. 2018). For the present literature review process online portals had been used to identify the effective journal articles. Based on the selected keywords some sources were gathered in the primary level. After going though those sources it was made clear that which parts are to be focused in this review procedure.
Then, select and examine an appropriate data collection method making use of primary and secondary data.
Solution: Data collection methods
There are a couple of research modules which helped to find appropriate data collection regarding the PID problems of the PV panels. They are primary research and secondary research. Primary research is a type of research where data collection is done with the help of one to one experience, surveys, questions, group discussions and experiencing on location. This research helps to get data on a first hand basis (de Oliveira et al. 2018). This is comparatively a time consuming research system which involves lengthy research works. The target of the primary research is to gather answers and solutions of some specific knowledge and problems. Primary research is the most important research work of a project.
Another essential research work is the secondary research work where the solutions of the findings and questions are already been gathered from the academic database or to be gathered from internet, news, articles, blogs etc. Using more than one source helps to enable crosschecking about the data that are collected. Secondary researches are nothing but collection of data which are already gathers, stored and authorized by some renowned data sourcing agencies. Here in this discussion about the PID effects on the PV modules, both the primary and the secondary research data are used to pen down the research work. The company based data collection is on the side of primary data which was discussed in the feasibility study section. The analytical work was also done with the help of the primary research (Hallam et al. 2018) To create the literature review, the secondary data research method took place. The crosschecking process is mainly done with the help of secondary research.
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Discuss the merits, limitations and pitfalls of your approaches to conduct data collection and analysis.
Solution: Merits and Limitations
To discuss the project, a good many merits and limitations has occurred. The following discussion will be related with the effects of the research. There is some effective knowledge reflection about the literature work. Though solar panels are producing clean energy, but it has some legitimate leakage which needs to be solved to restore and recycle solar energy. Restoring solar energy is comparatively costlier than other energy preservation methods. Due to this reason, it is absolutely essential to save energy. The depreciation rate of the PV modules is usually higher. Hence, the PID effect needs to be mineralized to maintain the energy production. To conduct data collection, most of the data are collected from some practical experiences and few from the gathered database (Arora et al. 2017). In search of one to one data collection, there is some unavailability of data that have occurred. To compensate the unavailability, the secondary research work took place. Much literature research work assisted further to collect the additional data.
Secondary research work assisted a major section to derive the data about the PID effects. Data like the need of the quality of the solar panels, the expenses and the longevity are collected from the secondary research works. The primary data research provided the understanding about the practical problems of the degradations. To resolve the problems, some pitfalls like having financial issues while resolving the PID issues, practical implementations and qualitative maintenance have occurred.
To discuss the project, a good many merits and limitations has occurred. The following discussion will be related with the effects of the research. There is some effective knowledge reflection about the literature work. Though solar panels are producing clean energy, but it has some legitimate leakage which needs to be solved to restore and recycle solar energy. Restoring solar energy is comparatively costlier than other energy preservation methods. Due to this reason, it is absolutely essential to save energy. The depreciation rate of the PV modules is usually higher. Hence, the PID effect needs to be mineralized to maintain the energy production. To conduct data collection, most of the data are collected from some practical experiences and few from the gathered database (Arora et al. 2017). In search of one to one data collection, there is some unavailability of data that have occurred. To compensate the unavailability, the secondary research work took place. Much literature research work assisted further to collect the additional data.
Secondary research work assisted a major section to derive the data about the PID effects. Data like the need of the quality of the solar panels, the expenses and the longevity are collected from the secondary research works. The primary data research provided the understanding about the practical problems of the degradations. To resolve the problems, some pitfalls like having financial issues while resolving the PID issues, practical implementations and qualitative maintenance have occurred.
Data analysis
As both primary and secondary data sources were used in the present research process a comparison among these two were possible to be done. This had allowed the researcher to develop a proper contrast and provide some new issues at the end of this research process. The primary focus had been provided to the secondary sources of data as it allows a proper understanding of the existing standards in the chosen research filed. Based on the issues identified, primary sources were included for identifying how much they are similar or contrasting to the issues identified previously (Chen et al. 2018). At the end of this process a model had been developed which allowed the researcher to overcome the issues included in the research design.
Based on the experience you gained in this research work, critically evaluate how effective was this experience in improving your personal performance in terms of acquired knowledge, research skills, presentation skills, etc. Also present about to what extent you have benefited from the findings of this research.
Solution: Effective and impact
I have researched about the potential induced degradation (PID) problems in solar panels. To find the solutions and reason of that problem, I have gained several knowledges regarding the solar panels. First of all, I came to know about the conversions of the panels as the solar energy converts into direct current. Apart from that in the era of saving natural energy and sources, solar energy should be welcomed in a precious way as it emits minimal pollution to the nature. I have also come to know that solar energy needs minimal water which creates a savings for hydro-resources. It is the cleanest source of energy which helps us to recycle the creating equipment, which means a minimum pollution occurs during the time of creating energy.
It is also known that it has the minimum most maintenance costing with extremely diverse applications. But there are some issues of solar panels and energies which are yet to be resolved. It is purely weather dependent. For example, if there is monsoon then the amount of derived solar power will be less and moreover the solar energy saving and storage is quite expensive (Manokar et al. 2018). Apart from all, the main problem of the PV panels is the PID issue. The PID situation affects the PV panels with respect to the ground. It affects the potential of the solar panels. The cause of PID occurs for the voltage difference between the solar cells and the glass surfaces. For that there is a significant electron loss which eventually decreases the potential of the solar panels. I have also come to know that, it is immensely important and needed to ground the solar panels properly.
Benefits
With the help of a proper PV panel grounding methods, the effects of PID reduced effectively. While enacting the methods, there were some cost related issues while creating the anti-PID materials as the monocrystalline solar panel requires effective researches and resources of equipment.I have gained knowledge about how the induced degradation counts and what are the probable solutions to minimize the degradation. For instance, when the potentiometer calculates a zero resistance, there are no differences between the passing current and voltages. Means there are no loss of current, which indicated about the zero degradation occurrences (Duan et al. 2019). There are sensors which can measure the loss of current, hence it indicates the PID effects which can be resolved with proper precautions.
To conclude the reflection and experience, it can be said that from part 1, we have understood how a PID effect works and shows its glitches. The more the PID effects are minimized, the more the electric production will increase. The quality of the solar panels also depends on the effective PID issues. Panels which show minimal effects after several usage are worthy PV panels and vise versa. Using a proper anti-PID box, usually installed between the strings inside the panel and the inverter to nullify the voltage of the solar panels by injecting the negative voltage (Sio et al. 2018). On the other hand, ground the PV panels negatively can help preventing the voltage differences between the strings and the inverter. In one word, we can say that, optimizing the method of choosing the perfect photovoltaic module, we can easily optimize the use of solar panels by minimizing the potential induced degradation effect. Optimizing the solar panels will evidently lead the concept of consuming energies to a cleaner side.
Identify the communication approaches that are most suitable to present the outcomes of your research and justify the same. Then, evaluate how the chosen communication approaches meet your research outcomes and objectives.
Solution: Communication approach for preparation
In order to deal with the issues in the preparation stage of the present research work, different modes of communication were required. At the basic level one to one direct communication had been done in order to make sure that proper idea about the issue can be developed. Some experts related to this particular filed were selected for this process and due to this reason it was possible to develop a good understanding by the means of communications strategies. After the basis activities were done the researcher was required to make some review of literary sources related to the domain of research (Rong et al. 2018). Different communication approaches were also helpful at this stage as it was required to interact with people who are aware of the issues. At this stage some difficulties were faced which were to be resolved for the effective completion of the review section. By the means of effective communication it was possible to discuss the issues and finally getting rid of the problems.
Different researches in this research domain have used various research approaches for making proper procedures with the existing data sources. Due to this reason, it becomes a topic of discussion that which particular process is to be used in the present one. By communicating with the experts in this issue it was possible to choose an effective approach and by implementing that results were obtained (Boyd et al. 2018.). Based on this brief discussion it can be identified that communication takes a crucial role in the completion of a research work by meeting all the standards. Due to this reason, present research process had adopted some effective communication standards to ensure all the criterion of this research can be fulfilled.
Prepare to present your research outcomes in an appropriate and effective manner to a group of your trainers and fellow students. Critically reflect your audience, their background and experience, and then present how do they influence the communication approach that you have used during the preparation and presentation of your outcomes. Will your communication approach differ if the audience were an experienced group from the industry in the same field of your research? Give your justification.
Solution: Communication approach for presentation
Making a research activity is never meaningful if obtained results cannot be presented in a proper way. There remain some standards that are to be maintained while providing the outcomes of a research. Due to this reason, it becomes essential for a researcher to identify those issues and being aware while the process of presentation. In the given research, communication took an important role when it came to presentation of the research outcomes. Other than the result section, other parts of a research activity also require some standard presentation norms to be followed. Still, it can be said that the importance is much higher in case of the result section as it allows the readers to depict what the research process is actually trying to demonstrate (Akbulatov et al. 2017). Written forms of communication had been used in this regard to make sure that all the possible issues can be depicted properly in standardized manner. Presentation was done in such a way that it remains easily communicable with all the individuals regardless of existing knowledge related to this particular domain.
In case the audience would have been an experienced group from the industry the mode of communication would have different. As the present research is targeted for a general population it was made sure that the usage of technical terms remains limited as it remains easily understandable for all of them (Bae et al. 2017). On the other hand, usage of technical aspects would have been possible if an experienced group of people from this particular industry would have been focused. This clearly depicts the variation in communication strategies based on the target population intended for any particular research activity.
A copper wire would help in earthling, as it bypasses any stray current towards the ground and it eventually saves the electrical equipment regarding solar panels. A PID free solar panel is a perfect solar panel which would deliver energy in a sustainable way. The whole research was based on the target of minimizing the potential induced degradation. However there are other problems which promote the PID effects. Extreme humidity, bad weather condition, temperature rise have some direct effects on the solar panel and eventually affects the PV panels with PID effects.
PID effects do not come in a single day. It is a degradation which occurs after a certain period of time after using the PV panels (Bredemeier et al. 2017) PIV effects are some microscopic problems which cannot be seen from the outside but it does have some unavoidable effects over the solar panels. It decreases the health of a panel and it is known that the purchasing price of the panels are extremely costly in compared to the other energy sources.
While doing the project, I have come to know that the BMO/233 PV panels are the most effective ones which can tackle the PID effects more efficiently than that of others. The project continues with the investigation of the best output giving solar panels (Xu et al. 2018). I came to know about how to reduce the PID issues optimally. For this, there was a need to install PID resistances for reducing the PID effects.