Study on the Performance of Different Types of PV Modules in Singapore

Fan Jiang(MIEEE, MIEE)

School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Singapore Polytechnic Singapore

Andy Wong
Resource Conservation Department The National Environment Agency Singapore

Abstract --To date, solar energy has been accepted worldwide as a high potential alternative energy. Current research and markets have shown that Solar Photovoltaics(PV) is amongst the fastest growing and most promising forms of renewable energy for electricity generation. Solar energy demand has grown at about 25% per annum over the past 15 years, whilst solar energy (PV) prices have declined on average 4% per annum over the past 15 years[1]. Progressive increase in conversion efficiencies and manufacturing economies of scale are the underlying drivers. Referring to the distribution of solar radiation all over the world, Singapore has a very good potential in applications of solar energy. This paper examines the status of the solar PV technology and feasibility of solar energy in Singapore through the case study. The analytic results in this paper are obtained from an 8.88kW gridconnected solar PV system. The solar system consists of three types of solar PVs, i.e. 2.7kW monocrystlline silicon, 3.06kW polycrystalline silicon and 3.12kW thin film silicon PVs. This paper addresses the efficiencies of different solar PVs and the impact of radiation on PV system operation. Furthermore, the feasibility of solar energy in Singapore is also discussed.

Singapore, as a country close to the equator, possesses a daily peak solar hours more than 4 hours that is higher than those in Japan, Germany and USA where solar energy, as an alternative energy, has been strongly supported by their governments. To investigate the characteristics of solar PVs in Singapore, the 8.8kW PV system consisting of three types of PV modules is installed at the central area of Singapore in 2002. The study on the data collected from the station will reveal the local solar irradiation and the efficiency of solar electricity for different types of PV modules in Singapore. Analysis in this paper also shows that the solar energy available in the country is higher than its energy demand, which leads to the conclusion that it is feasible to implement solar energy in Singapore.
DC measurement
Monocrystalline Monocrystlline
p PV(2 7 kWp)

AC measurement Inverter R1

PV(2.7kW )

Inverter Y1 Inverter B1

I. INTRODUCTION Energy from the sun travels to the earth in the form of electromagnetic radiation with a wide spectrum of frequency range. Available solar energy is often expressed in units of energy per time per unit area, such as Watts per square meter (W/m2) or watt hours per square meter(Wh/m2). The amount of energy available from the sun outside the Earths atmosphere is approximately 1367 W/m2[2]. However, the solar radiation reaching the Earth is lower than that. This is because, when entering the Earths atmosphere, solar radiation is scattered and absorbed to lower the solar radiation to about 1000W/m2. Although the global irradiation on the surface of the Earth can be as high as 1000W/m2, the available radiation is usually considerably lower than this maximum value due to the rotation of the Earth and adverse weather conditions. At any particular time, the available solar energy is primarily dependent upon how high the sun is in the sky and current cloud conditions. On a monthly or annual basis, the amount of solar energy available also depends upon the location. In general, useable solar energy is depends upon available solar energy, other weather conditions, the technology used, and the application.
Inverter R2
PV(3.06kWp PV(3.06 kW)p)

Polycrystlline Polycrystalline

Inverter Y2 Inverter B2

PV(3 12 kW )

PV(3.12kWp)

Thin film Thin film

Inverter R3 Inverter Y3 Inverter B3

Weather monitoring system

Data logger

415V Grid

Fig. 1.

the structure of the solar station

II. SOLAR PV SYSTEM A. Outline of the Systems The system under the study is shown in Fig. 1. The system consists of three main parts, e.g. PV arrays, grid connected inverters and weather monitoring system. The PV arrays and weather monitoring system are installed on the rooftop of a two storey building. The PV arrays are integrated to the grid through 9 grid connected inverters on the ground level of the building. It is noted from the figure that each type of PV array is integrated to the grid through the three single phase inverters independently. B. PV Arrays By far the majority of PV modules in use are based on monocrystalline and polycrystalline silicon. Crystalline means that the material in the PV has a regular ordered internal structure within each grain. The electrical properties of the crystalline PV are affected by the boundaries between grains. The PV modules made from monocrystalline silicon offer the highest efficiencies because they have no grain boundaries, but are also most expensive to manufacture. To contrast, the poly-crystalline PV modules are somewhat less efficient, but are cheaper to produce. Currently two types of PV modules have very similar cost of per watt electricity. In comparison with the crystalline silicon PV, thin film technology holds the promise of reducing the module cost through low material and energy consumption during the fabrication. In addition, integrally connected modules are produced directly without the costly individual cell handling and interconnections. To study the performance of various PV modules in Singapore, three types of PV arrays, e.g. monocrystalline, polycrystalline and thin film modules, are installed and three brands of PV modules are characterized in Table 1. As shown in Fig. 2, the PV panels are supported at a fixed inclination of 15 degree and mounted to face the south in order to capture the maximum solar energy. Each type of solar arrays is connected in such a way that the output voltage and current of the array meet the input requirement
Table 1. The technical specifications of PV modules Panel Brand/Model Peak Power Output(Wp) Open circuit voltage(V) Nominal current(A) Short circuit current(A) Total installed capacity(kWp) Monocrystlline PV Siemens/SP75 75W 21.7V/10.9V 4.4A/8.8A 4.8A/9.6A 2.7

of inverters as indicated in Table 3. The connection and outputs of three types of solar arrays are detailed in Table 2. C. Monitoring System The core of monitoring system is PC based data logger that is designed to record climate conditions and measure the DC/AC electric power flows. The weather parameters logged are solar irradiation, ambient/solar panels temperatures, humidity and wind speed/direction. The electric parameters for power flow analysis include DC/AC voltages, DC/AC currents, AC power and energy in kWh. All those parameters are sampled and stored every 5 second. In application of solar electricity, temperature is an important parameter affecting tremendously the efficiency of system conversion. Since the output voltage of a PV module is significantly influenced by the PV temperature, 20 thermocouples are mounted on the back of PV panels to gauge the surface temperatures of PV modules.

Fig 2. Installation of solar arrays

D. Integration of PV System to the Grid Grid connected PV system as a distributed generator is the fastest growing application of solar electricity. The main driver in this area is the improved reliability other than
Polycrystlline PV Shell/RSM75 73W 21.4V 4.3A 4.6A 3.06 Thin film PV Siemens/ST40 40W 22.2V 2.41A 2.59A 3.12

Table 2. the connection of solar arrays Type of arrays Monocrystalline Polycrystalline Thin film No. of strings 3 6 6 No. of modules per string 12 7 13 Output per string Voltage 144 V 84V 156V Max. current 4.4A 4.2A 2.4A

environmental consideration. As the rapid development of power electronics technology, the reliability of gridconnected inverters is dramatically improved and its cost declines.
Table 3. The specifications of Top Class Spark inverter Input parameters DC voltage: 75V to 276V Max DC current: 7.0A using 432 cells /9.0A using 216 cells Power: 1500W Switch on voltage: 75V MPP voltage window: 75V to 225V DC

irradiation in Fig. 5 indicates that the peak solar hours in Singapore is 4 hours.

Output parameters AC voltage: 195V to 256V AC nominal current: 6A

Efficiency of inverter Max efficiency: 94% Efficiency at 10% input - 90% Efficiency at 30% input - 92% Efficiency at 60% input - 93% Efficiency at 100% input - 91%

Max. power: 1350W Frequency: 50Hz (49 to 51 Hz)

The grid-connected inverters used in the system are single phase 1.5kW Top Class Spark inverters whose specifications are given in Table 3. As shown in the specification, the efficiency of the inverter is higher than 90% when input power ranges from 10% to 100% and the highest efficiency is achievable at 60% of input power. The inverters and metering system are installed in the switch room as depicted in Fig. 3.

B. Efficiency of Different PV Modules The efficiency of PV modules is primarily dependent on the solar irradiation and the temperature of solar cells. The former determines the output current of PV modules and the latter the output voltage of PV modules. The efficiencies of three types of arrays resulting from the analysis are shown in Fig. 6. Observing the figure, a couple of points can be concluded as follows. Firstly, the monocrystalline array possesses the highest converting efficiency, the polycrystalline the second and the thin film the lowest. Secondly, the efficiency of conversion from
1,400.00 Min Irradiation on 08 March W/m sq 1,200.00 Ave Irradiation on 13 March W/m sq Max Irradiation on 17 April W/m s q

Solar Irradiation(W/m2

1,000.00

800.00

600.00

400.00 200.00

Fig. 3. The grid connected inverters

0.00
0 50 00 10 20 30 40 50 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 : : : : : : : :0 :1 : 2 :3 : 4 :5 :0 : 1 :2 :3 : 4 :00 :40 :20 :00 :40 :20 :01 :41 :21 :01 :41 :21 :02 :42 :22 :02 :42 :22 07 07 08 09 09 10 11 11 12 13 13 14 15 15 16 17 17 18

III. PERFORMANCE OF THE PV SYSTEM In this study, the data recorded from 16 December, 2003 to 31 May, 2004 are used to analyse the solar irradiation in Singapore, efficiency of solar modules, efficiency of the entire system and the feasibility of solar energy in near future. A. Solar Irradiation in Singapore Referring the distribution of solar irradiation worldwide, the peak solar hours in Singapore is about 4.4 hours[3]. To achieve the accurate irradiation in Singapore, the five and a half months data collected from the solar station are analysed and the results depicted in Fig. 4 show three typical curves of irradiation in a sunny day, an intermittent cloudy and sunny day and a cloudy day. The average solar
2000.00 1800.00

time

Fig. 4. The irradiations of three typical days

Peak W/m2 in 4 Hr Trend line of W/m2 in 4 Hr peak solar hours

Peak solar Irradiation(W/m2)

1600.00 1400.00 1200.00 1000.00 800.00 600.00 400.00 200.00 0.00

16 /1 2/ 20 03 31 /1 2/ 20 03 15 /0 1/ 20 04 30 /0 1/ 20 04 14 /0 2/ 20 04 29 /0 2/ 20 04 15 /0 3/ 20 04 30 /0 3/ 20 04 14 /0 4/ 20 04 29 /0 4/ 20 04 14 /0 5/ 20 04 29 /0 5/ 20 04

Day

Fig. 5. The measured and average irradiations

solar to electricity in April and May is lower than those in January and February. Finally, the figure indicates that the occurrence of poor weather days in Singapore is very low, which can be a strong support to the implementation of solar energy.
12.0 10.0 8.0 6.0 4.0 2.0 0.0
25 /03 /2 00 4 16 /1 2/ 20 03 05 /01 /2 00 4 25 /01 /2 00 4 14 /02 /2 00 4 05 /03 /2 00 4 14 /04 /2 00 4 04 /05 /2 00 4 24 /0 5/ 20 04
Eff. Of Mono(%)
Eff. Of Poly(%)
Eff. Of ThinFilm(%)

Psolar

Solar array .1

Wiring connection .2

Inverter .3

Ptogrid

conversion efficiency(%)

The system efficiency, . , =

Ptogrid Psolar

= . 1. 2.

Fig. 7 The efficiency of entire solar system

1400 1200 1000

Polycrystalline Total Output Power(W)

Thin Film Total Output Power(W) Monocrystalline Total Output Power(W)

Day

Fig. 6 The conversion efficiency of three PV array systems

power output(W)

800 600 400 200 0

The conversion efficiencies of monocrystalline, polycrystalline and thin file arrays are 9.05%, 8.21% and 7.23% that are about 2% lower than the conversion efficiencies given by manufactures. The lower efficiencies may be caused by high operational temperature of solar cells and high humidity weather in Singapore. C. Analysis on the Efficiency of Grid Connected PV System To integrate the solar arrays to the grid network, the grid connected inverters that synchronized by grid supply frequency are installed. The power output from solar arrays is connected to the DC input of the inverter in which DC power is converted into AC power fed into the grid. The total efficiency of entire system is composed of three parts as illustrated in Fig. 7. As discussed previously, the efficiency of solar array, . 1, largely depends on the solar irradiation and the operational temperature. With the rapid development of power electronics and microcontroller technologies, most of modern grid connected inverters are equipped with maximum power point tracker(MPPT) and very high efficiency of a grid connected inverter, say higher than 90%, is achievable within the wide range of input power. The power losses due to wiring connection between solar arrays and inverters is determined by the I2R. One effective way to reduce the wire losses is to raise the system voltage when delivering the certain amount of power. The voltage levels of solar arrays connected to the inputs of grid connected inverters are 144V for monocrystalline array, 84V for polycrystalline array and 156V for thin film array. The AC power fed into the grid network is shown in Fig.8 and the conversion efficiencies of different systems equipped with monocrystalline, polycrystalline and thin film arrays are 8.12%, 7.45% and 6.75%.

D. Feasibility of Solar Energy in Singapore The above study has shown that Singapore is rich of sunshine in most time of a year. As shown in Fig.5, peak solar hours with respect to irradiation of 1000W/m2 in Singapore is 4 hours per day. The average solar energy available in Singapore per day amounts to about 2728000MWh that is calculated by 682 106m2 1000W 4hour. If average conversion efficiency of a solar system is 7%, 1000W/m2 solar irradiation can be converted to 70W/m2 electrical power directly sent to grid system. As a result, available electrical energy converted from solar irradiation results in 190960MWh that exceeds the maximum daily energy demand of 96000MWh[4] in the island. The apparent advantages to the use of solar energy are that it is clean, renewable and infinite energy. Furthermore, PV arrays are modular. This means that they may be adjusted in any size whenever necessitated. They can be used to build a large power plant, or to cover the roof of a small house. PV arrays without moving parts are nearly maintenance free within the life span of at least 25 years. At present, the high investment cost and long payback period are the main concern to implement solar PV in Singapore. As the price of PV modules keeps reduce and crude oil price oscillates increasingly, solar energy will become an attractive alternative to the fossil energy in

16 /1 2/ 03 30 /1 2/ 03 13 /0 1/ 04 27 /0 1/ 04 10 /0 2/ 04 24 /0 2/ 04 09 /0 3/ 04 23 /0 3/ 04 06 /0 4/ 04 20 /0 4/ 04 04 /0 5/ 04 18 /0 5/ 04

Day

Fig. 8 The electrical power fed from inverters to 415V grid

Singapore. Besides, Kyoto treaty will be another important impulse to foster the application of solar energy. IV. CONCLUSIONS This paper presents the study on the feasibility of solar energy in Singapore. Analysis on the 8.88kW solar system has been performed to find the efficiency of different types of PV modules and performance of grid connected solar system. The conversion efficiency of monocrystalline PV system reaches 8.12%, polycrystalline PV system 7.45% and thin film PV system 6.75%. The 4 peak solar hours makes Singapore possess high potential in application of solar energy. The calculation based on the case study indicates that the solar energy available in the country is enough to meet its demand to electricity.

V. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The authors would like to thank Singapore Polytechnic, Building and Construction Authority(BCA) and Resource Conservation Department, The National Environment Agency for their support to this study, especially to Mr. Cheong Kwok Seng from BCA for the provision of the technical data of the solar station. VI. REFERENCES
[1]. Winfried Hoffinann, PV Solar Electricity: One Among The New Millennium Industries, 17th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy and Conference and exhibition, Munich, Germany, 22-26, October, 2001. [2]. Tomas Markvart, Solar Electricity, second edition, published by John Willy & Sons, Ltd, UK, 2000. [3]. International Solar Irradiation Database, published by University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA, 2004 [4]. Historical Yearly Electricity Consumption(in GWh) from 1986 to 2004, published by Singapore Department of Statistics, 2005