An Experimental Study Of The Impact Of Shading On The Performance Of Various Solar Home System Photovoltaic Technologies

Abstract

Performance of a photovoltaic (PV) module is influenced by the amount of solar irradiation received by its cells. One of the trigger factors of PV performance degradation is shading due to passing clouds and high objects surrounding the PV area. This study aimed to examine the impact of shading on the performance degradation of polycrystalline (pc-Si) and mono-crytalline (mc-Si) modules – common PV technologies installed on solar home systems in Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) province, Indonesia. The shading patterns were simulated to cover the modules horizontally and vertically. Experimental results showed that short circuit current (Isc) and open circuit voltage (Voc) generated by the two solar module technologies decreased proportionally with the increasing of shading levels. Compared to the Voc, Isc was the more affected parameter caused by shading. Furthermore, it was found that mc-Si was the technology that accounted more degradation than pc-Si.