Performance Evaluation of 1.1 MW Grid-Connected Solar Photovoltaic Power Plant in Louisiana

In this work, performance analysis and comparison of three photovoltaic technologies are carried out in the Louisiana climate. During the calendar year of 2018, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette constructed and commissioned a 1.1 MW solar photovoltaic power plant for researching solar power i...

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Published inEnergies (Basel) Vol. 15; no. 9; p. 3420
Main Authors Veerendra Kumar, Deepak Jain, Deville, Lelia, Ritter, Kenneth A., Raush, Johnathan Richard, Ferdowsi, Farzad, Gottumukkala, Raju, Chambers, Terrence Lynn
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.05.2022
Subjects
Capacity factor
Copper indium gallium selenides
Economic analysis
Energy
Energy demand
energy yield
Gallium
Indium
levelized cost of energy (LCOE)
Performance evaluation
performance ratio
Photovoltaic cells
Photovoltaics
Polysilicon
Power plants
Project evaluation
Rain
Silicon
Software
solar photovoltaic system
Solar power
system efficiency
Technology
Thin films
Singapore
United States > US
Louisiana
Brazil
Italy
Kuwait
Spain
India
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Summary:In this work, performance analysis and comparison of three photovoltaic technologies are carried out in the Louisiana climate. During the calendar year of 2018, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette constructed and commissioned a 1.1 MW solar photovoltaic power plant for researching solar power in southern Louisiana and for partial energy demand of the university. It was one of the largest solar photovoltaic power plants in Louisiana when constructed and receives an annual solar insolation of 4.88 kWh/m2/d at latitude minus five degrees (25°) tilt. The solar power plant has a total of 4142 modules and incorporates three module technologies. Preliminary performance data from the system level are presented. The evaluation of different technologies is based on final yield, performance ratio, and capacity factor for one year from September 2019 to August 2020. An economic analysis is carried out using levelized cost of energy for the three photovoltaic (PV) technologies. Finally, the results are compared with simulated results of System Advisor Model (SAM) and PVsyst. It was found that copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) has better performance ratio of 0.79 compared with monocrystalline silicon and polycrystalline silicon, which have performance ratios of 0.77 and 0.73, respectively. The simulation results correlated with the actual performance of the plant.
ISSN:1996-1073
1996-1073
DOI:10.3390/en15093420