Experimental validation of performance and degradation study of canal-top photovoltaic system

Manish Kumar and Arun Kumar

Applied Energy, 2019, vol. 243, issue C, 102-118

Abstract: The canal-top PV systems have different environmental conditions than the land-based system which may affect its performance and degradation rate. The performance and reliability of PV modules on the canal and reservoir are critical for ensuring the long lifetime, improvement and economic viability of the canal-top PV systems. The long-term performance analysis of the canal-top PV systems and their comparison with conventional land-based PV systems is not reported widely. The objective of the present study is to assess the suitability of PV systems on the canals for their large scale installations and reliable operation. In order to understand the long-term performance behavior of the PV systems on the canals, the performance and degradation analysis of world’s first commercial multicrystallinesilicon (Multi-Si) based 10 MWp canal-top PV system installed in the Indian state of Gujarat has been carried out for their initial 2 years 8 months operation. An experimental setup was fabricated to compare the performance of canal-top PV systems with the conventional land-based PV systems and measurements were carried out in the outdoor conditions for six months in the outdoor laboratory of Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India. To achieve a better understanding of the performance and degradation of PV modules, a single-diode PV model was developed to characterize the PV modules. Furthermore, the evaporation loss reduction by canal-top PV systems has not been reported widely and has been experimentally quantified under this study. The annual average performance ratio and degradation rate of 10 MWp canal-top PV system are found to be 77.85% and 1.93 ± 0.28%/year, respectively. Experimental comparison of water tank-based PV module and land-based PV module shows that the average performance ratio of Multi-Si module on the water surface is about 1.5% lower compared to land-based Multi-Si module which is contrary to the general perception of higher power production by the Multi-Si PV systems on the canals.

Keywords: Canal-top PV system; Performance assessment; Degradation; PV model; Evaporation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261919305781
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:243:y:2019:i:c:p:102-118

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2019.03.168

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().