TY - JOUR
T1 - Comparison of Bifacial Solar Irradiance Model Predictions with Field Validation
AU - Pelaez, Silvana Ayala
AU - Deline, Chris
AU - Macalpine, Sara M.
AU - Marion, Bill
AU - Stein, Joshua S.
AU - Kostuk, Raymond K.
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received June 18, 2018; revised August 22, 2018 and October 4, 2018; accepted October 10, 2018. Date of publication November 14, 2018; date of current version December 21, 2018. This work was authored in part by Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC, the manager and operator of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy. This work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC36-08GO28308 with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under Grant BS123456, and in part by the Engineering Research Center Program of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy of the Department of Energy under NSF Cooperative Agreement EEC-1041895. This work was also supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy under Solar Energy Technologies Office Agreement 30295. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the NSF, the Department of Energy, or the U.S. Government. (Corresponding author: Silvana Ayala Pelaez.) S. Ayala Pelaez and R. K. Kostuk are with the University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719 USA (e-mail:,[email protected]; kostuk@email. arizona.edu).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2011-2012 IEEE.
PY - 2019/1
Y1 - 2019/1
N2 - Models predicting rear irradiance for bifacial systems are critical to establish accurate estimates of energy yield. Here, we compare five published bifacial irradiance models, varying clearance, row spacing, tilt, and albedo to measure the sensitivity to these parameters. Bifacial energy gains (BGE) as high as 20% are predicted for some configurations. Model agreement is generally good for low ground clearance (clearance heights lower than 0.75 times the collector width), but at higher clearances, finite system size and edge effects become a significant factor in simulations, stretching assumptions of infinite system extent made in some models. In addition, rear irradiance uniformity is improved at high ground clearance, as expected. A test-bed construction and results are described for comparison between modeled and measured data in Golden, CO, USA. The investigations indicate that model agreement for BGE calculation is better than 2% (absolute) when compared with measured results, depending on the system configuration.
AB - Models predicting rear irradiance for bifacial systems are critical to establish accurate estimates of energy yield. Here, we compare five published bifacial irradiance models, varying clearance, row spacing, tilt, and albedo to measure the sensitivity to these parameters. Bifacial energy gains (BGE) as high as 20% are predicted for some configurations. Model agreement is generally good for low ground clearance (clearance heights lower than 0.75 times the collector width), but at higher clearances, finite system size and edge effects become a significant factor in simulations, stretching assumptions of infinite system extent made in some models. In addition, rear irradiance uniformity is improved at high ground clearance, as expected. A test-bed construction and results are described for comparison between modeled and measured data in Golden, CO, USA. The investigations indicate that model agreement for BGE calculation is better than 2% (absolute) when compared with measured results, depending on the system configuration.
KW - Bifacial solar panels
KW - irradiance modeling
KW - photovoltaic (PV) system modeling
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U2 - 10.1109/JPHOTOV.2018.2877000
DO - 10.1109/JPHOTOV.2018.2877000
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85056583186
SN - 2156-3381
VL - 9
SP - 82
EP - 88
JO - IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics
JF - IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics
IS - 1
M1 - 8534404
ER -