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A comparison study of the performance of south/north-facing vs east/west-facing bifacial modules under shading condition
Conference proceeding

A comparison study of the performance of south/north-facing vs east/west-facing bifacial modules under shading condition

Amir Asgharzadeh, Chris Deline, Joshua Stein and Fatima Toor
2018 IEEE 7th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC) (A Joint Conference of 45th IEEE PVSC, 28th PVSEC & 34th EU PVSEC), pp.1730-1734
06/2018
DOI: 10.1109/PVSC.2018.8548185

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Abstract

Horizon obstructions can decrease the diffuse and direct light received by photovoltaic (PV) modules. In this paper, we compare the performances of the two bifacial PV system orientations: optimally tilted facing south/north (Bi S/N ), and vertically installed facing east/west (Bi E/W ) under no-shading and shading conditions. We considered multiple locations with different latitudes and weather types and observed that without any horizon obstructions, Bi S/N outperforms Bi E/W for most locations. However, certain types of obstructions cause Bi E/W to have higher energy yield than Bi S/N . For sunnier and lower latitude locations such as Albuquerque, NM, a very large obstruction at south causes this result. On the other hand, for higher latitude locations (e.g. Anchorage, AK), much smaller obstructions at south is enough to have higher energy yield for Bi E/W than Bi S/N . Under certain shading conditions Bi E/W produces up to 75 kWh/year more energy than Bi S/N .
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