Study on the Performance of Vertical Solar PV Systems in Tropical Region

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Advances in Energy Engineering (AEE) Volume 3, 2015 www.seipub.org/aee doi: 10.14355/aee.2015.03.001

Study on the Performance of Vertical Solar PV Systems in Tropical Region Lin Tong Shen*1, Jiang Fan2 School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Singapore Polytechnic 500 Dover Road, Singapore 139651 *1

LTS1394@hotmail.sg; 2jiangfan@sp.edu.sg

Abstract This paper addresses the study on the annual performance of vertical solar PV modules installed on building facades under the tropical region. To evaluate the yearly energy yields of vertical PV systems facing different orientations, four 1.116kWp triple‐ junction amorphous silicon (a‐Si) PV systems were mounted on the four facades of two buildings facing the North, East, South and West respectively. For the comparison, another same a‐Si PV system was horizontally mounted on the rooftop and tilted at 12° facing the South. The operational data of the five PV systems in a year were monitored and collected to analyse their performance under the same weather conditions. This paper will present the analytic results of energy yields of the five PV systems which help to understand the impacts of orientation of a vertically installed PV system in tropical region on its energy production and explore the potential of vertical Building Integrate Photovoltaic(BIPV) systems in tropical urban cities like Singapore. Keywords Vertical Solar Photovoltaic (PV) System; Triple‐junction Amorphous Module; Energy Yield

Introduction With intense Research and Development of new solar PV technologies in recent years, improvement of conversion efficiencies and mass production has resulted in higher efficiencies and lower cost of solar PV modules. This contributes to reduce PV investment and installation cost drastically and impulse the rapid growth of global PV market. Singapore, a tropical country located close to the equator (Latitude: 1°17´N, Longitude: 103°50’E), possesses an average daily irradiation of more than 4kWh/m2/day. Solar energy is a strong candidate in the renewable energy mix that the country can adopt. The Singapore government has identified that the renewable energy industry, particularly the Solar PV industry, as a new emerging industry and R&D area which can boost its economy and commit to its environmental goals. By 2013, the country has installed about 15MWp solar PV systems to reduce the consumption of fossil fuel and CO2 emission as illustrated in Fig. 1 [1]. The figure shows the steady increase of both residential and non‐residential PV installations. The sharp and steady rise of non‐residential installations reflects the strong government commitment in adopting solar energy as an alternative source of energy.

FIG. 1 INSTALLED GRID‐TIED CAPACITY OF SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC (PV) SYSTEMS IN SINGAPORE

Despite of the steady increase of PV installations, Singapore has not overcome the issue of land scarcity due to high population density in the country. Its current PV installations are mainly located on the roof top of buildings.

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