Impact of Installation Substrates on Photovoltaic Modules Energy Yield

One of the solutions used actually to enhance the efficiency of the photovoltaic panel installed on the roof of the building is to combine them with the green plants. This work presents an experimental study that seeks to describe the electrical and thermal enhancement introduced with the green roof substrate on the PV panel performances. The aim of this paper is to study the behavior of PV module with green roof in comparison with conventional substrate. A comparative study is done between three Si-monocrystalline PV modules installed with three different types of substrates (coatings) (Grass lawn, Slab, and Gravel). An electrical and thermal test is done by using thermocouples, thermal camera and solar analyzer to improve the efficiency of these substrates. The obtained results show an enhancement up to 3% in the electrical power of the PV module installed in grass lawn substrate in comparison with the other. Also, the pictures obtained by the thermal camera show that the grass lawn is the coolest substrate.