Field experience and performance of CPV system in different climates

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate CPV system performance in different climate conditions. The system data has been collecting since 2011. The same manufacturer's CPV systems have been operating in Aurora, CO, U.S. and Okayama, Japan. The relationship between the CPV performance and environment is considered from two different climate data sets. According to the energy yield analysis, the CPV array at the U.S. site generates more than twice the energy compared with Japan. The CPV array yield is better than the Fixed PV in U.S. site. In reverse, the Fixed PV is better than the CPV in Japan. The performance ratio (PR) of the CPV clearly decreases in winter while the conventional fixed flat PV increases at both sites. Based on spectral and temperature effects analysis, we conclude that the spectrum has a strong negative effect on the performance in winter. The spectral loss was up to 11.0% of its performance. The other factors: cf. soiling, alignment, tracker error, etc., had about 5% effect regardless of season. It was confirmed that these factors are non-negligible.