Analysis of the VISTA photovoltaic facility-system performance

• Published in: IEEE transactions on energy conversion Vol. 5; no. 2; pp. 245 - 251
• Main Authors: Rahman, S., Shrestha, G., Lahouar, S., Jockell, J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 01.06.1990
• Subjects: 140501 > Solar Energy Conversion > Photovoltaic Conversion; 299000 > Energy Planning & Policy > Unconventional Sources & Power Generation; CRYSTALS; Data acquisition; DATA ACQUISITION SYSTEMS; ELECTRICAL FAULTS; ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY AND ECONOMY; FEDERAL REGION III; Laboratories; MONOCRYSTALS; NORTH AMERICA; OUTAGES; Performance analysis; PERFORMANCE TESTING; PHOTOVOLTAIC POWER PLANTS; Photovoltaic systems; POLYCRYSTALS; Power conditioning; POWER PLANTS; Senior members; SOILS; SOLAR CELL ARRAYS; SOLAR ENERGY; SOLAR EQUIPMENT; Solar power generation; SOLAR POWER PLANTS; Student members; System performance; TESTING; USA 140600 > Solar Energy > Photovoltaic Power Systems; VIRGINIA
• ISSN: 0885-8969; 1558-0059
• DOI: 10.1109/60.107217

The performance of the Virginia Integrated Solar Test Arrays is reported and analyzed. The test period reported spans from January 1987 to December 1988. The performance of single-crystal and polycrystalline modules under diverse sky conditions over time while single-axis, two-axis tracking, or fixed tilt arrays are used is examined. Even though the photovoltaic modules performed as expected, the overall outage rates for the two years have ranged from 31.3% to 51.7% for the three subfields. Causes of these outages include PCU trips due to ground fault currents and failures of the insolation recorders, the data acquisition system, the trackers and the modules. The observations suggest that there has not been any significant deterioration of the module performance over this period.< >