Miguel Ángel Muñoz-García

Miguel Ángel Muñoz-García
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid | UPM · Agroforestry. Electrotechnics and Energy Unit

PhD
Reseach in photovoltaics, sensors, and communications electronics.

About

57
Publications
22,473
Reads
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1,622
Citations
Introduction
Miguel Ángel Muñoz-García currently works at the Agroforestry. Electrotechnics and Energy Unit, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Miguel does research in Renewable Energies, Electronics for Agriculture, and Materials Physics. Their current project is 'Postharvest technologies'.
Additional affiliations
September 2009 - September 2021
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
Position
  • Professor (Assistant)
February 2008 - September 2009
Centro Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas
Position
  • Researcher
Description
  • Researcher at the Photovoltaic Laboratory
September 2003 - September 2009
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
Position
  • Professor (Associate)

Publications

Publications (57)
Article
Full-text available
Between 2010 and 2022, there has been a significant increase in photovoltaic (PV) solar energy installations, driven by factors such as cost reductions, technological advances, policy support and innovative financing approaches. However, this rapid growth has created a significant challenge in the form of increased PV waste generation, coinciding w...
Poster
Full-text available
The characterisation of repaired modules reveals that despite the presence of defects, around 87% of these modules exhibit a power reduction of less than 20%. This significant finding suggests that the repaired modules successfully meet the manufacturer's warranty criteria, indicating their potential for reuse. The prospect of reusing repaired modu...
Poster
The objective of this work is to characterize PV modules that have been removed from existing PV plants in Spain for being considered defective, to analyze which are the common failures modes and to deepen in the type of failures that could be corrected to enlarge module lifetime. The work falls within the current exponential progress of PV deploym...
Poster
Agrivoltaics, the food and solar PV dual land use, is a promising land management strategy. In semi-arid climates, agricultural food production demands crop irrigation. Under these circumstances, an agrivoltaic setup will require a fraction of the PV production to be self-consumed by the irrigation pumping system, while the remainder is injected to...
Article
Full-text available
Photovoltaic (PV) installation rate is growing globally, therefore (PV) waste mass presents an environmental challenge.
Article
Full-text available
Within this paper, a PLC system that takes advantage of the loop resonance of an entire DC-PV string configured as a circular signal path is developed and implemented. Low cost and extremely simple transceivers intended to be installed within each PV module of a string have been designed and successfully tested. In addition, an anti-saturation coil...
Article
Full-text available
The editorial introduces a Special Issue entitled “Photovoltaics and Electrification in Agriculture”. Agriculture requires not only tillage and fertilization but also water supply and, in some cases, heating and cooling. These needs go hand in hand with the use of energy, which, increasingly, is electrical energy. An option that has dropped a lot i...
Article
Full-text available
For decades, society has been changing towards an energy mix that enhances the use of renewable sources and a more distributed generation of energy. The agricultural sector is included in this trend, which is why several studies are currently being carried out focused on the use of solar energy in greenhouses. This article aims to demonstrate the v...
Article
Full-text available
Solar photovoltaic (PV) energy is positioned to play a major role in the electricity generation mix of Mediterranean countries. Nonetheless, substantial increase in ground-mounted PV installed capacity could lead to competition with the agricultural use of land. A way to avert the peril is the electricity-food dual use of land or agro-photovoltaics...
Article
Full-text available
The measurement of current–voltage (I-V) curves of single photovoltaic (PV) modules is at this moment the most powerful technique regarding the monitoring and diagnostics of PV plants, providing accurate information about the possible failures or degradation at the module level. Automating these measurements and allowing them to be made online is s...
Poster
There is a need for in-situ soil moisture conservation in arid and semi-arid regions due to insufficient rainfall for agriculture. For this purpose, a combination implement [integrated reservoir tillage system (RT)] comprised of a single-row chisel plow, single-row spike tooth harrow, modified seeder, and spiked roller was developed and compared to...
Article
The effects of deposition of dust (soiling) on photovoltaic (PV) modules, mainly on their energy production, is a topic that is gaining importance, related to the increase in PV installations in very sunny arid areas and, therefore, which theoretically lead to higher energy production. Due to the multitude of influent factors regarding soiling expe...
Article
Rain-fed agriculture in central Spain is mostly water limited. Reservoir tillage (RT) can increase soil water content, thus helping overcome most factors limiting crop production in this region. The aim of this study was to investigate the short-term effects of two tillage practices on soil physical properties and water availability where rainfed b...
Article
We propose the use of a fuzzy system evaluating a feature space extracted from the daily power production profile of a photovoltaic solar plant. The fuzzy system proposed is able to detect inverter power limiting situations, as well as stages where the photovoltaic solar plant is showing steady state power production. The approach has been validate...
Poster
Full-text available
Off-grid photovoltaic systems are less constrained by national regulations than their grid-connected counterparts. Off-grid systems do not depend on feed-in tariff and the analysis of their cost-efficiency is more stable along time. This work estimates the economic parameters for two different technologies of photovoltaic systems, comparing their l...
Poster
Full-text available
The solar spectrum, which is also could be described by air mass factor, has a significant relationship with the performance of photovoltaic modules. The air mass dependence has been investigated by a theoretical method as well as an actual case of three different photovoltaic arrays: polycrystalline silicon, amorphous silicon and cadmium telluride...
Article
Reduction of both pollutant emissions and fossil fuel dependency is an objective of energy policies worldwide. In many countries, governments promote the use of efficient vehicles like the hybrid electric vehicle. Incorporation of electric drives in tractor and agricultural machinery presents advantages in terms of increased energy efficiency and e...
Article
Full-text available
There is a need for in-situ soil moisture conservation in arid and semi-arid regions due to insufficient rainfall for agriculture. For this purpose, a combination implement [integrated reservoir tillage system (RT)] comprised of a single-row chisel plow, single-row spike tooth harrow, modified seeder, and spiked roller was developed and compared to...
Article
Full-text available
The area cultivated using conservation tillage has recently increased in central Spain. However, soil compaction and water retention with conservation tillage still remains a genuine concern for landowners in this region because of its potential effect on the crop growth and yield. The aim of this research is to determine the short-term influences...
Article
Full-text available
A high-power high-efficiency laser power transmission system at 100 m based on an optimized multi-cell GaAs converter capable of supplying 9.7 W of electricity is demonstrated. An I–V testing system integrated with a data acquisition circuit and an analysis software is designed to measure the efficiency and the I–V characteristics of the laser powe...
Conference Paper
Grid connected solar plants are a good opportunity for their use for research as a secondary objective. In countries were feed‐in tariffs are still active, it is possible to include in the design of the solar plant elements for its use for research. In the case of the solar plant presented here both objectives are covered. The solar plant of this w...
Article
The solar irradiation that a crop receives is directly related to the physical and biological processes that affect the crop. However, the assessment of solar irradiation poses certain problems when it must be measured through fruit inside the canopy of a tree. In such cases, it is necessary to check many test points, which usually requires an expen...
Article
Full-text available
Soil erosion is a serious environmental threat in the Mediterranean region due to torrential rainfalls, and it contributes to the degradation of agricultural land. Techniques such as rainwater harvesting may improve soil water storage and increase agricultural productivity, which could result in more effective land usage. Reservoir tillage is an ef...
Article
So far, the majority of reports on on-line measurement considered soil properties with direct spectral responses in near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). This work reports on the results of on-line measurement of soil properties with indirect spectral responses, e.g. pH, cation exchange capacity (CEC), exchangeable calcium (Caex) and exchangeable magn...
Article
The manufacture of photovoltaic (PV) modules has greatly increased in the past few years. The classical PV module is based on crystalline silicon (c-Si), nevertheless the so called thin-film technology is gaining importance each year. In this research paper we present a experimental grid-connected solar plant situated in one of the buildings of the...
Article
Thin film photovoltaic (TF) modules have gained importance in the photovoltaic (PV) market. New PV plants increasingly use TF technologies. In order to have a reliable sample of a PV module population, a huge number of modules must be measured. There is a big variety of materials used in TF technology. Some of these modules are made of amorphous or...
Article
The solar generator in a solar system usually does not work at the standard conditions at which the manufacturer offers its characteristics. One of the most important aspect of a solar system is the obtain of the electrical characteristics (characterization) at different operating conditions. Usually this process needs expensive measuring systems....
Article
Full-text available
Active learning is one of the most efficient mechanisms for learning, according to the psychology of learning. When students act as teachers for other students, the communication is more fluent and knowledge is transferred easier than in a traditional classroom. This teaching method is referred to in the literature as reciprocal peer teaching. In t...
Conference Paper
During the last 10 years the Spanish photovoltaic market has experienced one of the most important increases worldwide. The continuous raise on the price of the electricity in Spain, as in other European countries, USA and Japan, as well as the decrease of the cost of solar photovoltaic systems along this decade is opening a new way to reach grid p...
Article
Photovoltaic modules based on thin film technology are gaining importance in the photovoltaic market, and module installers and plant owners have increasingly begun to request methods of performing module quality control. These modules pose additional problems for measuring power under standard test conditions (STC), beyond problems caused by the t...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The aim of this work is to find whether there exist any relationship between radiation and watercore development on apple fruit, during maturation, using a non destructive method such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). For such purpose, several low cost solar radiation sensors were designed for the trial and placed at 2 different heights (1.5 and...
Article
Shape uniformity of fruits and vegetables is important whether they are to be fresh marketed or processed. To achieve the desired uniformity, fruits must be inspected and classified. Although manual sorting of agricultural products is potentially accurate, in practice it reveals subjective and inconsistent. Computer vision has become a proven, reli...
Article
During the last 10 years the Spanish photovoltaic market has experienced one of the most important increases worldwide. The continuous raise on the price of the electricity in Spain, as in other European countries, USA and Japan, as well as the decrease of the cost of solar photovoltaic systems along this decade is opening a new way to reach grid p...
Article
The use of photovoltaic experimental plants in engineering educational buildings contributes to an increase in acceptance of this technology by future engineers. There are some photovoltaic (PV) systems in educational buildings in Spain, but they are usually limited to buildings in relation to electrical technologies or research areas. They are not...
Article
Full-text available
Measurements that suppliers offer in specification sheets are not always close to the actual power measured in independent laboratories such as CIEMAT. Independent measurements tend to be lower than those printed on the label sometimes even lower than the allowed tolerance indicated by the manufacturer on the same label. Furthermore, a potentially...
Conference Paper
Title: Thin Film Modules Characterization under Standard Test Conditions Abstract/Summary: Photovoltaic modules based on the relatively new thin film technology are gaining importance in the photovoltaic market. Some of these modules are made of silicon, consisting of layers of amorphous silicon or microcrystalline silicon. Other thin film PV mo...
Article
The reduction of the energy consumption for heating is, in many areas, an interesting objective for the production of greenhouses. In this study several techniques of energy saving have been tested using a simple polyethylene cover, in combination with two systems of distribution of the heat: radiant floors and air heaters. The goal was to verify t...
Article
Full-text available
El control climático de invernaderos es posible gracias al uso de sensores capaces de medir direrentes variables climáticas: temperatura, humedad, radiación solar, velocidad y dirección del viento, concentración de CO2, precipitaciones, etc. Un sensor es un dispositivo que produce una señal utilizable en función del valor de una magnitu física, pro...

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