Solar Energy Capacity Assessment and Performance Evaluation of Designed Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Systems

One of the most common sustainable energy resources that contributes a significant portion of the energy produced from renewable resources is solar photovoltaic. The research presented in this paper examines the behaviour of a 150.7 kWp grid-connected PV energy generation system to either feed electrical loads of site (a public university, GCU Faisalabad) or to feed into the utility grid when the generation from the PV system is more than the demand from the on-site load. PVSyst software is used in the system simulation together with Meteonorm produced and measured climatic information sets (solar irradiance, ambient temperature and wind speed). The analysis of the simulated energy yields includes determining the optimal energy generation photovoltaic array, the energy that is fed into the utility network, normalised energy generation per installed kWp and performance ratio. The computed annual worldwide incident energy on the collector without optical adjustments is 1764.0 kWh/m², and the annual effective global irradiance after optical losses is 1654.7 kWh/m². With this irradiation, the solar (PV) array produced 218.12 MWh of DC energy annually, whereas 211.70 MWh of AC energy was injected into the national grid. The collection of the designed PV system is 0.87 kilowatt-hour/kWp/day, system losses is 0.120 kilowatt-hour /kWp/day and produced useful energy 3.85 kilowatt-hour /kWp/day. The measured average yearly performance ratio (PR) is 79.64%. In the month of January, the highest PR value of 85.4% was achieved.