Irradiance Sensor Implementation Using Commercial Bifacial PV Modules
Abstract
The number of photovoltaic systems has grown exponentially in recent years in Brazil and worldwide, largely due to the quality and reliability of the technology. To ensure that a system is operating under the designed conditions, it is necessary to evaluate its performance, which basically uses the energy incident on the generator and the energy injected into the electrical grid. However, systems using bifacial photovoltaic modules present significant complexity when quantifying the total energy incident on the generator plane, since the rear-side irradiance component is influenced by several external factors such as albedo, generator height above the ground, and surrounding surface composition. Therefore, characterizing the irradiance incident on the back of bifacial photovoltaic modules is essential to accurately quantify the bifacial gain and evaluate the performance of these systems. Since point irradiance sensors such as pyranometers or reference cells do not “see” the entire generator plane, they can introduce measurement biases that lead to inaccurate estimations of the total irradiance. This paper describes the design and construction of a reference photovoltaic module, specially designed as a practical alternative to conventional radiation sensors. The proposed reference module offers a low-cost and easy-to-integrate solution, contributing to improving performance studies and modeling of bifacial systems.
Keywords
solar, photovoltaic, bifacial reference module, monitoring, sensor, irradiance