Comparison of monofacial and bifacial photovoltaic panel performances 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

The world is on the brink of energy and environmental crises. Renewable energy sources are becoming increasingly important for ensuring energy security and climate neutrality. The photovoltaic (PV) systems are one of the key solutions, but they have many drawbacks and must be optimized for each specific case. Bifacial PV panels are becoming increasingly popular, and they have their specific uses and disadvantages. This work compares the performances of monofacial (MPV) polycrystalline and bifacial (SBPV) N-type ТОРСon PV panel performances for two similar snowy winter days with different levels of illumination. The main conclusions for the two days of study are that SBPV work with 3.49 ±4.29 to 8.19 ±3,68 % higher average efficiency and generate about twice as high power from the same surface area, if there is good light reflection towards the backside. If the light reflection towards the back side of SBPV is poor, the performance of both technologies might be about the same for cold winter weather, despite the 4 % difference in the efficiencies, probably due to the different temperature coefficients, which could be used for compensation of seasonal differences during PV system designs.