Comparative performance analysis of photovoltaic modules of different materials for four different climatic zone of India

Abstract The expected effectiveness of different types of photovoltaic modules (PV) reveals remarkable loss due to difference in meteorological parameters like solar radiation and ambient temperature. There is a need to foresight exact performance of modules in different field. In the present manuscript, monocrystalline, polycrystalline and thin films PV modules performance are evaluated and compared for four climatic zone of India (New Delhi, Srinagar, Bangalore and Jodhpur). An analytical expression for different PV technologies is obtained by using basic energy balance equations. Various parameters like ambient temperature, radiation intensity and design factors are the functions of simple algebraic expression. Electrical efficiency, module surface temperature and electrical energy per annum produced are evaluated and presented for present module effectiveness. Comparison of the result show that the electrical efficiency of the PV module does not mainly depends on the solar radiation intensity of climatic zones but are greatly affected by peak temperatures PV modules. Bangalore having moderate climatic conditions, has higher electrical energy per annum yield as compared to Jodhpur despite of having hot climatic conditions, for all the PV modules. The amorphous silicon being the best among other PV Modules in terms of electrical energy output. The efficiency is observed to be low at high module temperature because of the higher resistance. Further, this paper also aims to study the effect of opaque (tedlar) and semitransparent (glass) back cover plate on the performance of the PV module. Semi-transparent back cover plate has low module temperature than opaque back cover plate because solar radiation is transmitted away through its non-covering area. Hence, opaque is less efficient than the semitransparent one.