Study of the performance of the backside of bifacial photovoltaic panels for two similar snowy winter days with different levels of illumination

¹ University of Ruse “Angel Kanchev”, Department of Telecommunications, 7004, Ruse, Bulgaria
² University of Ruse “Angel Kanchev”, Department of Automatics and Electronics, 7004, Ruse, Bulgaria
³ University of Ruse “Angel Kanchev”, Department of Electrical Power Engineering, 7004, Ruse, Bulgaria

^* Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Abstract

In times of energy crises, global pollution, and changing weather, the role of renewable energy sources in the green transition increases. Bifacial photovoltaic (PV) panels are becoming increasingly popular, but it is unclear how much the backside can improve their performance and under what conditions they are effectively applicable. This work investigates the maximum contribution of the back side for two similar snowy winter days with different illumination levels. The conclusion is that the backside significantly improves the performance of bifacial PV panels, if there is enough space behind them to reflect light. It contributed to the power generated by an average of 42.69 ± 6.32% for the sunny day and 53.36 ±7.9 % for the cloudy one. If the back side is with poor illumination, the performance degrades, and, in such cases, the bifacial PV panels should not be used. The difference in the energy generated by the studied models of BPV for the sunny and cloudy days reached values of 4.06 ±0.6 times, the average being 2.43 ± 0.36 times.