Techno-economic study of photovoltaic systems performance in Shiraz, Iran

Abstract Regarding the global increasing trend of photovoltaic (PV) installations, it is necessary to examine their performance under different climatic conditions. In this study, a three years of experimentation was carried out in order to evaluate soiling loss, yearly degradation and economic viability of PV systems in the south-central Iran. The results showed that dust effect in consecutive years can be significantly different. For instance, soiling loss in summer of 2017 and 2019 was 6.9% and 7.7%, respectively, whereas this value was 26.4% in summer 2018 due to a sand storm. The yearly average degradation of PV module was evaluated 1.17%, which was significantly lower than the degradation rate found by considering only first two years operation of PV module. In the economic analysis part of the research, a typical 1 MW solar plant was modeled in PVsyst software by using the measured data. The economic assessment showed that investment in PV industry without any special government support is economically profitable, as net present value (NPV) and discounted payback time (DPT) were found 1,367,499 US$ and 5.82 years, respectively. Also, levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) was 0.099 US$/kWh, which could be reduced to 0.054 US$/kWh by providing loan for investment costs.