Performance of Photovoltaic Modules of Different Solar Cells

Abstract

In this paper, an attempt of performance evaluation of semitransparent and opaque photovoltaic (PV) modules of different generation solar cells, having the maximum efficiencies reported in the literature at standard test conditions (STC), has been carried out particularly for the months of January and June. The outdoor performance is also evaluated for the commercially available semitransparent and opaque PV modules. Annual electrical energy, capitalized cost, annualized uniform cost (unacost), and cost per unit electrical energy for both types of solar modules, namely, semitransparent and opaque have also been computed along with their characteristics curves. Semitransparent PV modules have shown higher efficiencies compared to the opaque ones. Calculations show that for the PV modules made in laboratory, CdTe exhibits the maximum annual electrical energy generation resulting into minimum cost per unit electrical energy, whereas a-Si/nc-Si possesses the maximum annual electrical energy generation giving minimum cost per unit electrical energy when commercially available solar modules are concerned. CIGS has shown the lowest capitalized cost over all other PV technologies.

Life Cycle Cost Assessment and Enviroeconomic Analysis of Thin Film Amorphous Silicon Photovoltaic System

“…The present life cycle cost can be obtained from Eq. (10) by knowing present value of capital cost of SAPV system, battery bank systems Cost, OM cost and salvage value using equations (6), (7), (8), (9).…”

“…by [9] E el,hourly = ƞ m, hourly ×A m ×I(t) hourly (2) Step-4: The daily electricity of photovoltaic module has been calculated by summing the hourly electricity and then monthly electricity has been calculated by multiplying daily electricity and number of clear days in that month.…”

“…Step-5: The annual electricity in kWh can be calculated by summing monthly electricity for 12 months which is given by [9] 12 , , , 1…”

“…Since electricity directly depends on solar intensity which is maximum between 12 pm and 2 pm and minimum at 8 am and 5 pm. The degradation rate of thin film amorphous silicon photovoltaic module is considered as 0.87 % per year [9]. The degradation of electricity from PV module for 20 years life has been shown in Figure 6.…”

Exergoeconomic and Enviroeconomic Analysis of Photovoltaic Modules of Different Solar Cells

“…The schematic designs of semitransparent and opaque PV modules based on c-Si and thin film solar cells are shown in Figure 1, where panel (a) corresponds to semitransparent c-Si, panel (b) corresponds to semitransparent thin film, panel (c) corresponds to opaque c-Si, and panel (d) corresponds to opaque thin film solar cells. The detailed performance analysis of the same systems has been presented very recently [11]. For incidence of the maximum solar radiation, the PV modules in northern hemisphere were considered to be places south oriented, having inclination with horizontal surface (30 ∘ ) equal to the latitude of the system's station [12][13][14].…”