First-Year Performance of a PV Plant in Jordan Compared to PV Plants in the Region

Abstract

Abstract-This paper presents the first year (2014) performance analysis of a 276 kWp grid-connected roof-type solar PV plant located at the campus of Al-Ahliyya Amman University in Jordan, using monitored data. The plant is installed on 3000 m2-roof of Arena building at the University campus. The array consists of 1176 modules with two orientations 10° and 15°. The PV array is configured in a way that the system includes 14 panels in parallel with 14 inverters. The plant is equipped with a monitoring system which is connected to the internet and gives the data on a daily basis. The study shows that the actual and estimated specific energy productions are 1639kWh/kWp-year, and 1726 kWh/kWp-year, respectively. The annual capacity factor and performance ratio are found to be 18.7% and 87.5%, respectively. The actual energy production is found to be 452406 kWh/year, whereas the estimated annual energy production is found to be 476467 kWh as calculated using the software PVsyst V6.32. The measured and estimated yields are in close agreement to each other with a relative error of about 5%. It is found that the maximum actual yields in July and minimum in January. Compared to PV plants worldwide, and particularly in detail to a PV plant in Syria, the analysed plant (the AAU plant) has an excellent overall performance.

Performance assessment of grid-interactive solar photovoltaic projects under India’s national solar mission

“…The PVPS Task 2 provided suitable information on the operational performance, reliability, and costs of PV systems to various stakeholders. In addition, over the previous years, several groups of researchers conducted a performance evaluation of small and utility-scale PV projects [47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66]. The performance of PV projects are essentially analyzed in terms of a) capacity utilization factor, b) specific energy generation, c) performance ratio, d) efficiency of the PV system, and e) levelized cost of electricity.…”

Comparing Between Best Energy Efficient Techniques Worldwide with Existing Solution Implemented in Al-Ahliyya Amman University

“…Furthermore, the overall efficiency of the solar cell has been increased to the 31.25% using Carbon Nanotubes (CNT) anti-reflection coating material at the surface of the solar cells [9]. While in Jordan, rooftop PV solar system has been implemented in Al-Mutah University and AAU to supply electricity demand, reduce energy consumption with performance ratio above 80% [10], [11].…”

“…It also rewards building applying for the program [16], [17]. Researchers in Category I have studied the contribution of renewable energy technologies mainly wind energy and solar photovoltaic system using both conventional and CNT photovoltaics panels to minimize fossil fuel reliance, energy consumption and investments cost [5], [7], [8], [10], [11], [18]. While researchers in Category II agree that improvement in the building Envelope system by either applying DIMs, cool roof coating or Efficient Electric Lights technology would save more than 60% of the annual heating and cooling and reduce carbon emissions [7], [12]- [14].…”

“…Al-Ahliyya Amman University (AAU) is located in Al-Sarw region between Amman and Al-salt city [10] (32°03'00"N, 35°43'12"E, the altitude of 795m and GHI of 6.19 KWh.m 2 [19]. The university consists of seven buildings, five students housing and cultural Foundation Forums (ARENA) with an overall area of 7268m 2 .…”

“…The promised system is located in the carport area of the car parking with an overall area of 4.3125 Km 2 . The annual energy consumption is 4 GWh [10] with monthly bill cost of 2000JD [11]. Figure 1 shows the energy consumption facilities at the AAU university as 52% of the electricity consumption is being utilized by the pumping system, lighting systems, water chiller, air conditioning and female residence [10].…”