Anti-reflective Coated Glass and its Impact on Bifacial Modules’ Temperature in Desert Locations

Abstract

Without any doubt does anti-reflective coating (ARC) on solar glass help to boost the annual module performance in the range of 3 to 4% for monofacial modules with Sunarc AR coated glass under moderate climate conditions [1] which certainly differ from desert climates. In this work three bifacial and one monofacial photovoltaic modules, with different glass coatings, are installed in a desert region as the Atacama Desert in Chile, with the optimum tilt for the location and same surrounding conditions. From the results it is observed that the glass/glass bifacial modules with ARC on both glass sheets can achieve a mean performance ratio (PR) of up to 5% higher than a module without coating in any of both glasses. It is also observed that the thermal dependence of PR for modules with ARC on both glasses and its operative temperature are larger compared to modules without coated glass.