Performance analysis of micro-amorphe silicon PV array under actual climatic conditions in Nouakchott, Mauritania

This article presents a study on the performance evaluation of a photovoltaic array located in Sheikh Zayed solar power plant (Nouakchott, Mauritania). This array contains 1872 micro-amorphous silicon photovoltaic modules, which generate a peak power of 954.809 kW under standard conditions. Monitoring data for one year from the photovoltaic array was used to evaluate the performance indices such as reference yield, array yield, system yield, array capture losses, and thermal capture losses. The results show that the photovoltaic array performances depend on both insolation and environmental conditions. The array capture loss varies from a minimum of 1.63 h/d to a maximum of 2.46 h/d. Therefore, the system loss is relatively stable with an average of 0.12 hours per day. The monthly performance ratio ranges vary from 0.61% in August to 0.71% in November with a monthly average of 0.66%. The monthly average capacity factor reaches its maximum in October (20.54 %) and its minimum in January (11.66 %).