Environmental effects on performance of solar photovoltaic module

Solar photovoltaic energy market has witnessed enormous growth worldwide in last decade. The solar photovoltaic power plants can be implemented at any scale varying from a small rooftop of a house to utility's mega project range of hundreds of MWs. With growing interest in developing PV plants, it has become imperative to understand the performance characteristics and parameters affecting the energy yield of PV modules. The paper presents the insights to solar PV module. A comprehensive analysis of factors contributing towards module losses is provided. The output performance vis-à-vis varying environmental conditions has been discussed. For performance analysis, a 310Wp polycrystalline module is simulated for different physical conditions by using PVsyst software. The module performance gets affected mainly due to change of irradiance levels, operating temperatures, shading effects and other correlated factors. The power output varies significantly with any deviations from standard test conditions. The selection of suitable site, technical design, right installation and regular maintenance would improve the performance of solar PV plant making it economically viable source of energy.