Energy performance of 3 silicon-based PV module technologies in 20 sites of Morocco

Abstract There are very few studies treating, with the same protocol, data arising from several identical photovoltaic systems installed at several sites. Results from the ‘Propre.Ma’ project are reported, they take profit from the combined advantage of having the same solar photovoltaic system in 20 different places in Morocco and, in each place, the same variety of 3 solar photovoltaic systems (mc-Si, pc-Si and a-Si/μc-Si solar modules) having nearly the same rated power (2kWp), using the same inverter (2 kW). Results are based on a bit more than 3 years of data. For the first time on this scale, yearly yields are reported after the statistics of failure of null or erroneous data, the way they were corrected them and their probable impact on results. These are used for quality assessment of results and selection of those to retain. After having defined, for the first time, the concept of yearly and daily relative PV yields (RPVY), it is shown that their use allows a satisfying one-to-one system comparison. The results show the performance and degradation differences between the seaside cities and the inland ones. To our knowledge, this is the first paper presenting a comparison of a set of different PV technologies having the same size deployed over twenty sites.