Comparative assessment of the productive performance of three solar PV technologies at gatton

Economic assessment of the viability of different types of solar PV tracking technologies centers on assessment of comparative production outcomes of the different tracking technologies and there relative costs. We use the NREL SAM model to simulate PV yield for three representative solar PV systems installed at Gatton. In these simulations we use hourly solar irradiance, weather and surface albedo data, technical data relating to module and inverter characteristics and impacts associated with module soiling and near-object shading. A key finding is that over the period 2007 to 2015, average increases in annual production of between 23.9 and 24.3 per cent and 38.0 and 39.1 per cent were obtained for Single Axis and Dual Axis tracking systems relative to the Fixed Tilt system, depending upon module soiling rates.