A worldwide cost-based design and optimization of tilted bifacial solar farms

• Published in: Applied energy 2019-08, Vol.247 (C), p.467-479
• Main Authors: Patel, M. Tahir, Khan, M. Ryyan, Sun, Xingshu, Alam, Muhammad A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bifacial Solar farms; Levelized cost of energy (LCOE); Photovoltaics; Solar energy
• ISSN: 0306-2619; 1872-9118
• DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2019.03.150

•A new perspective on LCOE that decouples cost and performance of solar farms.•Optimization of solar farm design using essential Module to Land cost ratio (ML).•Modeling of direct, diffuse, and albedo light collection for tilted bifacial PV.•2–6% reduction in LCOE for bifacial over monofacial PV farm for |latitude| > 30°.•Global maps, opportunities, and challenges for bifacial vs. monofacial PV farm. The steady decrease in the levelized cost of solar energy (LCOE) has made it increasingly cost-competitive against fossil fuels. The cost reduction is supported by a combination of material, device, and system innovations. To this end, bifacial solar farms are expected to decrease LCOE further by increasing the energy yield; but given the rapid pace of design/manufacturing innovations, a cost-inclusive optimization of bifacial PV systems at the farm-level (including land costs) has not been reported. In our worldwide study, we use a fundamentally new approach to decouple energy yield from cost considerations by parameterizing the LCOE formula in terms of “land-related cost” and “module-related cost” to show that an interplay of these parameters defines the optimum design of bifacial farms. For ground-mounted solar panels, we observe that the panels must be oriented horizontally and packed densely for locations with high “land-related cost”, whereas the panels should be optimally tilted for places with high “module-related cost”. For systems with relatively high “module-related costs” and for locations with |latitude| > 30°, the bifacial modules must be tilted ∼10°–15° higher and will reduce LCOE by 2–6% compared to their monofacial counterparts. The results in this paper will guide the deployment of LCOE-minimized ground-mounted tilted bifacial farms around the world.