A countrywide analysis of 27 solar power plants installed at different climates

Abstract

The world is still heavily using nonconventional energy sources, which are worryingly based on carbon. The step is now alternative energy sources hoping that they will be more environmentally friendly. One of the important energy conversion forms by using these sources is photovoltaic solar systems. These type of power plants is on the increase in everyday on the world. Before investment a solar power plant in a specified region, a techno-economic analyse is performed for that power plant by using several meteorological data like solar irradiance and ambient temperature. However, this analyses generally lacks evaluation on effects of climatic and geographical conditions. In this work, 5 years of data of 27 grid-connected photovoltaic power plants are investigated, which are installed on seven different climate types in Turkey. Firstly, the power plants are categorized considering the tilt angles and Köppen–Gieger climate classification. The performance evaluations of the plants are mainly conducted using monthly average efficiencies and specific yields. The monthly average efficiencies, which were classified using the tilts and climate types were from 12 to 17%, from 12 to 16% and from 13 to 15% for tilts 30°/10°, 25° and 20°, respectively. The variation in the specific yields decrease with elevation as y(x) = − 0.068x + 1707.29 (kWh/kWp). As the performances of photovoltaic systems for some locations within the Csb climatic regions may relatively lower than some other regions with same climate type. Thus, techno-economic performance for PVPP located in this climate classification should be carefully treated.