With the world moving towards clean and renewable energy faster, the manufacturers of solar and renewable energy technologies are increasingly being pressured to deliver high-performance, highly reliable and cost-effective systems within short development times. Photovoltaic modules, power inverters, wind turbine structures, thermal management systems, and battery energy storage solutions among others are all products that must meet stringent requirements with regards to structural integrity, thermal efficiency, aerodynamic performance, electrical reliability and regulatory compliance. To address these multifaceted engineering issues, the top manufacturing companies are adopting simulation-based, digitalized processes of developing products with the help of the Siemens Design and Simulation solutions. These complex technologies enable virtual prototyping, multi-physics simulation and design optimization so that engineers can predict real-world performance early in the design phase. With structural, thermal, fluid, electromagnetic and system level analysis, organizations can reduce physical testing cycles and development risks and accelerate time to market by a factor of several times as well as guarantee product life and efficacy of the lifecycle cycle.
The Problems to Renewable Energy Manufacturers. The solar and renewable energy businesses are facing complex engineering and production problems including
Improving the thermal efficiency of solar panels, inverters and power electronics. Custom engineered wind and solar structures to be light and strong. Dealing with extreme weather conditions (wind load, extreme temperatures, dust, humidity). Lessening the expenses of the prototypes and speeding up development cycles. Adherence to rigorous efficiency, safety and regulatory requirements. Smooth mechanical, electrical and thermal combination. The conventional design approaches, which are highly based on the use of physical tests usually led to long cycles, high costs, and late market penetration.
- Digitalization at Siemens: Idea Process.The Siemens Digital Industries Software is a unified ecosystem, which brings design, simulation, and manufacturing as a single digital twin. This enables the manufacturers of renewable energy to foresee actual performance when operating in the real world at an early phase enabling them to make confident and informed design decisions.
Siemens NX Product Innovation. The Siemens NX enables the engineering departments to accelerate the development of high-end renewed energy products:
The rapid design changes are made possible by the parametric and synchronous modeling. Extensive design incorporating mechanical, electrical and structural design. High-end surface and assembly modelling of solar trackers, mounting systems and turbine components. Efficiently coupled with CAE and CFD. Designing early and within the same environment saves the designers a significant deal of design rework and engineering errors.
- Optimization of Thermal and Fluid Performance using Siemens CFD. The thermal management is important when it comes to solar and renewable systems - particularly to inverters, power electronics, battery packs, and cooling systems.
Simcenter FLOEFD - CAD-Embedded CFD. Rapid heat and airflow analysis within CAD. Best in the initial design validation. Allows the engineers to experiment with different designs. Simcenter STAR-CCM+ - Advanced Multiphysics CFD. Complex airflow, heat transfer and environmental effects High-fidelity simulation. Favors wind loading, exterior aerodynamics, cooling optimization and energy savings research. Impact: Reduced overheating risks Improved energy efficiency physical prototypes. Faster design iterations Multiphysics / Structural validation Structural validation with Siemens CAE. With Simcenter 3D, manufacturers of renewable energy can: Examine structural integrity of solar frames, wind turbine parts and mounting systems. Model fatigue, vibration, and extreme loads. Carry out thermal structural coupling to determine actual operating behavior. Make sure that it is long-term and secure. This enables manufacturers to have lighter, stronger and reliable products at minimal material usage. Virtual Validation: Cost and Time Saving. Siemens solutions result in manufacturers being able to attain: As much as 30-40 percent hasty development time. A great deal of cost savings in prototyping and testing.
Swifter designed process and approvals. Less possibility of late design change. Design simulation allows the design to address the problems early, when the amendments would be the least costly. Related Engineering to Digital Twin and PLM. Teamcenter PLM allows Siemens to reach end-to-end digital continuity: Data centralized through design, simulation and manufacturing. Better communication between engineering teams. Improved change management and tracking. Quickened product lifecycle decisions. This is an interconnected strategy that helps in fast-tracking digital maturity and scalable growth. Delivering Sustainable Innovation. The digital applications provided by Siemens help renewable energy producers to become faster in their innovations and help achieve the sustainability targets through:
Minimizing material waste Ensuring energy efficiency. Virtual testing with the aim of reducing carbon emissions. Smartening and greening product design. Renewable Energy Manufacturing is Digital in the Future. With the continued complexity and scale of solar and renewable energy technologies, the continued competitiveness will rely upon the possibility to expedite the innovation processes, multi-physics interplay, and provide high-performance systems at optimized lifecycle costs. Today's renewable products - photovoltaic modules and power electronics, wind turbine structures and energy storage systems, etc. - require very strict validation in structural, thermal, fluid, electrical, and reliability-related areas.
The Siemens Design and Simulation solutions offer a complete digital engineering base, which supports simulation-based design and closed-loop optimization through the product life cycle. Using high fidelity CAE, advanced CFD and digital twin technologies, manufacturers are able to perform a virtual verification of performance, anticipate degradation and failure modes, optimize performance, and comply with industry standards far earlier in the design lifecycle when the physical prototypes have not been developed.