Field Analysis of three different Silicon-based Technologies in Composite Climatic Condition

Abstract This paper investigates the performance of the photovoltaics based on the filtering techniques, performance monitoring metrics, and numerical methodologies at real outdoor conditions. The experimental study is carried out on a set of nine photovoltaics modules consisting three modules of each technology i.e. Multi-crystalline (mc-si), Heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin layer (HIT) and Amorphous Silicon (a-si). Various electrical performance data has been collected and characterized for a period of three years in the composite climate of India. The research methodology includes mapping of series resistance, estimation of monthly average effective peak Power (P eff ), Performance Ratio (PR) and temperature corrected Performance Ratio (PR T_CORR ) has been carried out. The average percentage reduction in the effective peak power (ΔP eff ) for the mc-si, a-si and HIT modules were 15.8%, 17.2%, and 7.1% respectively over a period of three years. The monthly average PR for mc-si, a-si and HIT modules were 0.70, 0.82 and 0.83 respectively for the same period. The PR T_CORR over three-year duration for mc-si is 0.77, for a-si is 0.89, and 0.90 for a HIT modules respectively. The annual degradation is 1.5%, 1.6% and 0.39% for mc-si, a-si and HIT modules respectively. The increment in the series resistance has been calculated estimated using the procedure I of the IEC 60,891 Edi 2.0 and the mapping of the series resistance has been done with the matrix of in-plane irradiance and module temperature. Further, the uncertainty calculations of series resistance have been estimated for three different irradiation ranges i.e. 1000 W/m 2 , 900 W/m 2 and 800 W/m 2 which is around 4% to ensure the sanctity of measurements and calculations. It has been observed that module degrades faster in hot climatic zones. The interpretation of measured and calculated results, correlation of bus-bar corrosion, and module degradation have been delineated for the composite climate. Finally, it also discusses the usage of the above-proposed methods/tools for optimization of solar cell design parameters at different climatic conditions.