A software-based approach in designing a rooftop bifacial PV system for the North Hall of Residence, IUT

Abstract

Abstract Bifacial rooftop photovoltaic panels appear to be an excellent means of power generation in this era of urbanization, especially for land-limited countries like Bangladesh. This paper presents a software-based approach to design and simulate a bifacial solar-panel-based energy model on the rooftop of the North Hall of Residence of the Islamic University of Technology, Gazipur. This vertically mounted model investigates the feasibility and applicability of such an energy model in a university residence, situated in a load-shedding-prone area. Hence, three prominent software platforms, namely PVSOL, PVsyst and System Advisor Model (SAM), are brought into action and rigorous simulations are performed for three different orientations; promising outcomes are observed in terms of annual energy yield, bifacial gain (BG) and consumption coverage of the grid and PV model. The annual energy demand of the North Hall is ~444 733.5 kWh. The three orientations can generate annually 92 508.62, 94 643.48 and 86 758.94 kWh, respectively. Hence, it is evident that the proposed orientations can supply almost 19–21% of the site’s annual demand. Monthly BG analysis shows an overall increase in energy gain of 13%, 15.6% and 6% for Orientation-1, Orientation-2 and Orientation-3, respectively. A rigorous comparative analysis and deviation analysis among the software results has been accomplished to gain more insight into the feasibility of the proposed system. Thus, we have focused on a detailed software-based estimation of energy production for different orientations of the PV panels, considering several factors, which will provide prior knowledge and assessment before going for hardware implementation in the future.