Abstract
Due to its advantages, the use of clean energy in general and especially solar PV systems offer a great solution to problems that people face in their everyday life. Generation of energy using solar PV system technology is cheaper and clean technology compared to one of the fossil fuels. Aside from its advantages, this technology still has some drawbacks that affect its performance where the ones caused by shadows are considered as one of the big problems. This research work showed laboratory experiments and simulations to see how the system is affected by shading where a 1.5 kWp PV system has been used for the study. The system has been simulated with PVsyst (7.0.6 version) and experimented within the University of Rwanda/ African Center of Excellence in Energy Studies for Sustainable Development (UR/ACE-ESD) High E-Tech Smart Grid Laboratory. Laboratory experiments showed that whatever shade is applied to the system, the DC voltage and current change (increases or decrease) and DC power decreases. In the simulation, it has been notified that the irradiance losses are dependent on the time of a day, sun position, and the rate of created shadow. From the simulated results, annual energy produced and near shading losses in the non-shaded system is 2373 kWh and 0% respectively while in the shaded system, the annual energy produced was 2055 kWh and 2.1% of near shading losses. This undoubtedly disturbs the performance of the power system as well as other related works. Based on the result for this work, shadow affects the performance of PV systems and the rate at which the PV system is affected depends on the shaded area, position, and how much radiation reaches that shaded area. This increases the system’s instability as it can lose its ability to generate power at the maximum due to the user control algorithm as well as degradation of the output that a PV panel can produce. Furthermore, investigations need to be carried out to modify this work. Providers of energy based on solar systems should sensitize shading issues towards their beneficiaries, and make a follow-up to installed systems so that users can give special attention to shading issues while they operate their system. It is recommended to continue this research within Rwandan Solar power plants considered as a case study for more investigation.
Highlights
In solar photovoltaic (SPV) systems, the irradiation of the sun at high frequency is captured by an array of semiconductors photovoltaic (PV) cells which convert that solar radiation directly into direct current electricity where it can be used directly or stored for later use [1]
The simulation and validation of both non-shaded and shaded PV systems have been done and their comparison is based on performances
The use of SPV systems is a solution to many countries around the world especially for low- and middle-income countries which are still struggling in providing electricity to their citizens
Summary
In solar photovoltaic (SPV) systems, the irradiation of the sun at high frequency is captured by an array of semiconductors photovoltaic (PV) cells which convert that solar radiation directly into direct current electricity where it can be used directly or stored for later use [1]. One of the quickest growing enterprises is PV and it has changed significantly in the course of the most previous couple of years The competitiveness of this field is increasing, in 2013 for the first time in more than a decade, solar was over all other renewable energy technologies in the International Journal of Sustainable and Green Energy 2021; 10(2): 47-62 sense of new generating capacity installed with an increase of 29 percent compared with 2012 [2]. Worldwide total PV installations represented 1.8 gigawatts (GW) in 2000 and 71.1 GW in 2011 with a growth rate of 44% [3]. The rate of increase in production based on PV in the past 15 years has been shown with a yearly rate growth of over 40% [4]. By the end of 2018, global cumulative installed PV reached 480
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