System Integration

Having suffered from a chicken and egg status, bifacial solar is making ground and the advent of single-glass modules could lower costs and tip the odds in 2019. John Parnell reports.

Ensuring the stability of solar tracking systems and modules during wind events is one of the top concerns of solar site owners, project developers and EPC contractors. A poorly designed single-axis tracker can result in damage to solar trackers and modules, leading to costly downtime, insurance claims, or even possible injury. Todd Andersen outlines the innovative methods that engineers at Array Technologies have uncovered and use to address this major potential setback for solar projects.

While Filipino policymakers pondered a controversial bill that would allow a solar company to set up a micro-grid and transmission franchise aiming to improve power supply across the country, a small town on the island of Mindoro was already enjoying round-the-clock electricity for the first time ever. The town of Paluan, situated in the northwest corner of Mindoro, the seventh largest island in the Philippines, dominated by an agricultural society and dubbed ‘the brownout capital of the Philippines’, is receiving power from Southeast Asia’s largest micro-grid, combining solar PV, energy storage and diesel technology.

Effective management of cabling in a PV system can greatly impact its lifetime maintenance requirements and thus profitability. Samuel Truthseeker of TECSI Solar looks in detail at the latest developments in wire management and highlights several reliability considerations.

Amid reports of logistical and bureaucratic difficulties, Germany’s IB Vogt earlier this year became the first company to complete and energise one of the multiple projects that will eventually make up Benban, Egypt’s gargantuan solar park in the western desert governorate of Aswan.

PV systems incorporating bifacial modules require careful design and integration to maximise the additional yield they offer. Drawing on extensive field studies, researchers from LONGi Solar describe the optimum design of bifacial systems in the desert conditions of the Middle East, to which bifacial technology is especially well suited

Bifacial technology is seen by many as the shape of things to come for the solar industry. But how is it regarded by those on the frontline of choosing equipment that will result in the most profitable projects? Jenya Meydbray, VP of solar technology at Cypress Creek Renewables, offers an insider’s view

As described in the previous pages, tracking and bifacial technologies combined offer the prospect of higher energy outputs. Javier Guerrero, R&D manager at Soltec, one of the pioneers of bifacial tracking, explains some of the lessons the company has learned about optimising tracker design for bifacial modules

Bifacial technology promises significant reductions in the levelised cost of electricity for PV systems, and almost all major PV suppliers are already producing or planning bifacial modules. Hartmut Nussbaumer, Markus Klenk, Andreas Halm & Andreas Schneider give an overview of the currently available bifacial modules and cell technologies and adapted mounting solutions

In April of this year, the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, drew scorn when he announced that every village across India had access to electricity. The reality that ‘electrification’ in government terminology meant that a mere 10% of households in any one village had power, was not made clear in the initial announcements.