PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF MONO-CRYSTALLINE PHOTOVOLTAIC PANELS IN FUNAAB, ALABATA, OGUN STATE, NIGERIA WEATHER CONDITION

Abstract

The current-voltage characteristic is the basic descriptor of photovoltaic device and is used to test the performance of PV panel. The manufacture specifications on solar panels are obtained under standard condition (solar irradiance of 1000 W/m2, AM 1.5 and operating temperature of 25oC) which is not the real operating condition the solar panels are exposed to on the installation site. With this, the information obtained from the manufacture specifications would not be sufficient to give accurate prediction of the performance of the solar panel. This study conducted performance evaluation on mono-crystalline photovoltaic panels in Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, FUNAAB, Alabata, Ogun State, Nigeria weather condition. The research work was carried out on the field with six 80 W (480 W) solar panels of sunshine product made in Germany. The performance of the solar panel was evaluated from the short circuit current (𝐼𝑠𝑐), open circuit voltage (𝑉𝑜𝑐), maximum current (𝐼𝑚𝑎𝑥), maximum voltage (𝐼𝑚𝑎𝑥), maximum output power, conversion efficiency, normalized output power efficiency and fill factor of each solar panel. The maximum output power of each panel was obtained from the I-V and P-V curves. The conversion efficiency of the six 80 W (480 W) solar panels ranged from 9.44 to 10.56% while the normalized output power efficiency ranged from 69.7 to 70.1%. The fill factors and the maximum output power of the six panels respectively, are 0.57, 0.55, 0.57, 0.58, 0.60, 0.62 and 55.8, 54.1, 53.2, 59.4, 53.1, 59.4 W. A total of 335 W (69.8%) for the six panels was obtained. The results reveal that the actual performance of the solar panels does not correspond with the technical data provided by the manufacturer.