Investigation of the factors affecting the power produced in grid-connected solar power plants

In this study, the factors affecting the power produced in grid-connected solar power plants were examined. The number of panels and inverters required for the solar energy system with an installed power of 500 kW has been calculated. The location of the solar energy system, which is planned to be installed with 1184 solar panels and 10 inverters, was chosen as Kocaeli University Umuttepe campus. The monthly, seasonal and annual optimum panel angle values for the solar energy system are calculated by considering the latitude value of the selected location and the sun's declination angles. The annual optimum panel angle was found to be 31.88° for the selected location located at 40.82° north latitude. The solar energy system was created in PVsyst and MATLAB/Simulink. Within the scope of the application made in PVsyst, the effect of bifacial solar panels and albedo values on the generated power was examined. If the albedo value increased from 0.3 to 0.73, an increase of 10.22% was obtained in the annual amount of energy produced. The power values produced annually in PVsyst were examined by taking into account the efficiency losses over time. The system installed with bifacial solar panels was compared with the single sided panel system and the space savings obtained with bifacial solar panels was calculated as 6.78%. Current, voltage and power graphs were created in MATLAB/Simulink using experimentally obtained ambient temperature and solar radiation values. Since panel temperature values are used in Simulink, ambient temperature values are converted to panel temperature with Lasnier approach. By using the panel current and voltage values obtained in Simulink, the relations between panel temperature-panel voltage and solar radiation-panel current were obtained and regression graphs were created with Python programming language. The annual produced energy values obtained in PVsyst and Simulink for the solar energy system with the same features were compared and it was seen that the value obtained in PVsyst was less than Simulink.