This grid-connected PV plant consists of 4 systems with different module technologies, installed in an East/West configuration on a flat rooftop of building J5 at the University of Agder campus Grimstad (latitude 58.334°N, longitude 8.575°E). The power produced is used for self-consumption in the building. In addition, the J5 building contains an outdoor test facility for monitoring of PV module characteristics (I-V curves) and weather parameters, including extensive instrumentation for irradiance measurements.

All information collected from the various data sources is stored in a designated database at the university, which can be accessed for research purposes and student projects. Research areas include PV system and module performance and degradation analysis, module optimizer performance, solar spectral irradiance measurements and investigation of spectral impact on PV module performance.
The PV plant consists of 160 modules installed in an East/West configuration with a tilt angle of 10° and azimuth angles -83° (East) and +97° (West). The system is symmetrical, with an equal number of modules facing East and West. The total installed capacity of the PV plant is 42.60 kWp DC, which is partitioned into the following four systems:

1. SunPower Mono: 40 modules of SunPower 360 Wp mono-Si modules (SPR-X22-360), in total 14.40 kWp. Connected to 4 SolaX inverters (2 East, 2 West), each of 3.68 kVA nominal AC power (DC-AC ratio 0.98).
2. Solibro CIGS: 40 modules of Solibro 120 Wp CIGS modules (SL2-FG1.4), in total 4.80 kWp. Connected to 1 SolaX inverter (using separate MPPT inputs East and West) of 3.68 kVA nominal AC power (DC-AC ratio 1.30).
3. IBC Mono: 40 modules of IBC Solar 315 Wp mono-Si modules (MonoSol 315 VL5), in total 12.60 kWp. Connected to 4 SolaX inverters (2 East, 2 West), each of 3.0 kVA nominal AC power (DC-AC ratio 1.05).
4. IBC Poly: 40 modules of IBC Solar 270 Wp poly-Si modules (PolySol 270 CS5), in total 10.80 kWp. Connected to 3 SolaX inverters (separate MPPT inputs East and West), two of 3.0 kVA and one of 3.68 kVA nominal AC power (DC-AC ratio 1.12).

All four systems use single-phase string inverters from SolaX Power, type X1 Boost with two MPPT inputs. Of the total 12 inverters there are six of type X1-3.0-T with nominal AC power 3.0 kVA, and six of type X1-3.6-T with nominal AC power 3.68 kVA. System 1, 3 and 4 have optimizers from Tigo (TS4-R-O-475W) installed on each module. For the CIGS modules in system 2, optimizers could not be used due to the high module DC voltage (Voc = 97.6 V at STC), which was outside their operating range. The optimizers are used to optimize output from each PV module when performance is affected by shading or mismatch. The optimizers also provide module-level monitoring of DC current, voltage and power.

Last update: 2021/05/29 09:56