A Comparative Study of Grid-Tied PV Systems Employing CIGS and Crystalline Solar Modules

The new millennium has witnessed an expeditious expansion in the installation of rooftop solar PV in the residential as well as the commercial sector. The grid-tied solar PV installations favor the consumer as well as the utility by providing electrical energy at an optimized rate and a relief to the national grid respectively. With the advancement in the field of solar PV technology, conventional solar PV cells are replaced with thin-film modules. In this regard, copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) based thin-film modules are considered to be the future of solar PV modules from the standpoint of cost as well as efficiency. A grid-connected CIGS thin-film solar PV modules approach with a battery energy storage system (BESS) is proposed in this research effort. The system is modeled using PVsyst software considering the case of a university to furnish comparative analysis of CIGS-based system over conventional crystalline technology. PVsyst software uses advanced computational algorithms and thereby provides results closely to real-world scenarios. A comprehensive analysis including the considerations to be adopted for the optimal PV array and battery sizing, system losses, and annual available power injected to the grid based on peak shaving power dispatch strategy is discussed in the paper. It is concluded that the CIGS-based PV system provides an annual energy production advantage of 2.5% and 5.4% against mono-crystalline and poly-crystalline-based PV systems respectively. Furthermore, the designed system performance ratio is found to be 87.5%, satisfying the minimal boundary conditions for the installation of the proposed system.