System Integration

The worldwide market for trackers is developing rapidly and so too are the technologies they use. Mark Osborne reports on some of the latest design innovatoins that are helping drive trackers into new markets and applications.

Delhi-headquartered renewable energy firm Hero Future Energies has completed India’s first largescale solar and wind energy hybrid project in the state of Karnataka. The project at Kavithal, Raichur District, which included an existing 50MW wind farm, now has a neighbouring 28.8MW solar PV site to form a hybrid system.

Leading PV inverter manufacturer Huawei discusses recent technical developments to a better understanding of bifacial solar module PV power plants, using three recent case studies. These efficient PV modules need to be used with devices such as inverters to maximize value. Recently, many inverters and solutions that match bifacial modules have appeared in the industry. Which solution is the best match for bifacial modules? Based on a large amount of experimental data, this article describes the solution needed for bifacial modules.

Bifaciality is a complex area of PV technology and currently there is some confusion over what bifacial gains can be expected and how these transfer to system cost reductions. Radovan Kopecek and Joris Libal describe how bifacial gains are defined, what bifacial gains can be expected and what this means for real applications

Technology | Falling prices have seen single-axis trackers become standard issue in utility PV plants in many parts of the world. As the tracker market becomes more crowded, manufacturers are developing increasingly sophisticated technologies to stay ahead of the game and support wider PV power plant innovation. Ben Willis reports

Modules | PV module technology is more advanced and more varied than at any other time. Having pulled together a throng of senior PV technology experts for our PV CellTech conference, PV Tech’s head of market research, Finlay Colville, discusses with John Parnell the need to match these advances with a dedicated event this November.

Module degradation | Light-induced degradation has long been recognised for its negative effects on the performance of crystalline silicon solar cells. Researchers from Fraunhofer CSP explain how with the advent of advanced materials and cell technologies such as PERC, new tests and standards are required to minimise the impact of the phenomenon on plant reliability.

Set across a semi-arid stretch of land in far south India, the world’s second largest solar plant and India’s biggest to date is a pertinent symbol of India’s emergence as one of the most dominant renewable energy markets on the planet. Already under intense pressure to physically construct the entire project capacity in just eight months, heavyweight Indian infrastructure conglomerate Adani also had to withstand unseasonal and unprecedented extreme weather in late 2015.

Module degradation | When the phenomenon of so-called snail trails first emerged over a decade ago, they prompted concerns of a major new problem afflicting PV modules. Sylke Meyer, Mark Turek, Thomas Manke, Stephan Großer and Christian Hagendorf, who have contributed extensively to understanding the science behind snail trails, review the latest thinking on the phenomenon and what it means for plant performance.

Module defects: The properties of module encapsulant materials are coming under closer scrutiny as their role in a number of common field failures becomes better understood. Juliane Berghold and Tsuyoshi Shioda report on new testing methods being developed to analyse the composition of encapsulants and improve the quality control of this crucial material.