Analysis of a grid connected solar photovoltaic system with different PV technologies

Electrical Energy has become one of the basic need of an individual in this era. There are many conventional and non-conventional methods of generating electricity. Electricity generation using Photovoltaic system is considered as one of the clean method of energy generation. Even though the PV power plants have a high initial cost, they have a longer lifespan of 25 years. There are different types of PV technologies in the market today like crystalline solar cells and thin film solar cells etc. In this paper, an attempt is done to evaluate and compare the performance of a 25 MW grid-connected solar PV power plant at Chandigarh of India with different PV technologies viz. crystalline silicon and thin film technologies. A simulation based study is adopted in this analysis. PVsyst simulation software is used for the simulation of the system. Energy production of the system with 2 types of modules of each technology obtained for various years of operation spanning entire lifetime of the solar PV plant. This analysis will reflect how best the solar P V plant will perform with two types of crystalline PV modules and two types of thin film P V modules.