PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT OF VARIOUS PV MODULE TYPES UNDER DESERT CONDITIONS THROUGH: DEVICE SIMULATIONS AND OUTDOOR MEASUREMENTS

摘要

The Middle East region is considered as one the most promising areas for PV deployment due to its vast solar potential. Despite this fact, successful deployment of PV systems in the region is challenging due to local weather conditions. Dust storms are very frequent in these areas, which not only cause heavy soiling on PV module surface but may also significantly affect the form and intensity of the solar spectrum due to airborne dust particles which scatter sunlight. In addition, the combination of high ambient temperatures and increased irradiance levels pose additional challenges in PV module performance and reliability. Therefore, in this work a customized device simulator is proposed aiming to provide accurate calculations of PV module energy yield and performance using local climate data including solar radiation spectrum and temperature measurements. Simulation data are validated with outdoor IV measurements on various types of commercial c-Si based PV modules including polycrystalline Si and bifacial PERC, located at KAUST University at the Western Region of Saudi Arabia. Seasonal performance variations of various solar cell technologies due to local spectrum variations are also investigated.