Performance Comparison for Sun-Tracking Mechanism Photovoltaic (PV) and Concentrated Photovoltaic (CPV) Solar Panels with Fixed System PV Panels in Jordan

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to investigate performance enhancement of standard fixed photovoltaic (PV) solar systems when using single and dual sun tracking mechanisms, and compare it to concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) systems which inherently uses tracking systems. The study has two parts: experimental part and selected case study part. In the experimental analysis, characterization and performance comparison of four mounting types of standard PV systems are conducted. The PV panels are installed using either fixed mount, single axis (East-West tracking), single axis (NorthSouth tracking), or dual axis tracking. The analysis is done in Amman, Jordan. The data has been collected using data loggers every fifteen minutes, recorded then analyzed. The performance of these different mounting cases of PV system is compared to a CPV system installed in ASU. The results indicated that the Concentrated photovoltaic system utilized more electrical power than conventional photovoltaic. It produced 4.16% gain of power output compared with dual axes PV tracking system. The electrical power generation on the tracking surfaces were significantly greater than that on a fixed surface. There were increases of electrical power gain up to 37.72%, 24.05% and 16.56% for the two axes, east-west and north-south tracking, respectively, as compared with the fixed surface inclined 26̊ to the south in Amman, Jordan.