Impact of temperature & illumination for improvement in photovoltaic system efficiency/

Abstract

This research endeavors to boost up the annual power production as well as efficiency of photovoltaic (PV) systems by investigating the combined effect of temperature and illumination, as these both have a significant impact on PV systems output power. This proposed approach combines solar radiation tracker system and choice of the best suitable PV module in terms of radiation harvesting and power production using Rhino/Grasshopper. The solar radiation tracker system is used to track the sun for optimal amount of radiations depending on the annual weather data available for Pakistan. This system is studied for horizontal, vertical and dual axis trackers. Furthermore, it is found that, this technique is very useful to boost the power production in most of the months of year as compared to fixed PV system approach. On the other hand, selection of best PV module type intends to achieve better efficiency. It is shown in results that California Energy Commission (CEC) module and Sandia module outperform conventional simplified silicon crystalline module in term of radiation harvesting and power production. This suggested integration of solar radiation tracker system along with optimum PV module results in 20% annual power production improvement for the case of Pakistan.