Pitch Optimization of Monocrystalline PV Panels with Consideration of Mutual Shading Effects in Solar Power Plants

The efficiency of the PhotoVoltaic (PV) panels will be reduced if the adjacent PV panels are shaded by the shadow. In order to get the minimum array spacing, the threshold position of a shadow can be calculated by its variation rules, where the adjacent panels don’t produce shading. Therefore, mutual shading is much more important than some might believe that having a PV panel in shade will dramatically reduce its electricity production.In this paper, the pitch of sheds in the Tehran NE location, with 30o tilt angle and 0 o azimuth angle (the best tilt and azimuth angles for Tehran s latitude and longitude) for monocrystalline PV panels is calculated. In order to minimize the mutual shading of the solar panels on each other, pitch value is obtained. The mutual shading and annual irradiance criteria are used to calculate best pitch of the sheds. Simulation results show that the best pitch of sheds for monocrystalline PV panels at Tehran NE is 5 meters with collector bandwidth of 3 meters.

Keywords:

solar panel , pitch of sheds , mutual shading loss , azimuth angle , tilt angle