The influence of temperature of photovoltaic modules on performance of solar power plant

Abstract

Studies and research of photovoltaic power plants in real world conditions with a goal to find more effective control algorithms require significant investment in equipment and takes a lot of time. To accelerate the research, mathematical models are designed, which allow to simulate processes in photovoltaic power plant under conditions close to the real ones. To investigate the effects of temperature variations, the block of temperature is designed, which allows imitating the processes lasting for month or even several years. This block is used in a model of photovoltaic power plant, developed in earlier studies. The model described in this paper consists of four structural blocks: a block, imitating the solar energy flux; the block, for simulation of temperature variations; the block, imitating photovoltaic module and the control algorithm, in which the maximum power point tracking is performed using IncCond algorithm. The model of photovoltaic power plant is implemented in Matlab/Simulink environment. The model is used to investigate the effects of photovoltaic module temperature on performance of the power plant during a cloudy day. It is proved, that due to overheated photovoltaic modules the efficiency of power plant is decreased. It is proved, that it is possible to increase the efficiency of photovoltaic power plant from 11 % to 31 % applying forced cooling to all of the photovoltaic modules.