Influence of a chimney and balcony on a PV yield

Roof azimuth : 30 Roof tilt : 35 The two blueprints give all necessary distances for the drawing in PVsyst. Make the simulation using Sunpower E20 245 W panels to maximize the energy yield. Steps : - Choose a location. - Insert the information of tilt and azimuth. - Choose the inverter. - Make a first simulation without taking into account the shades. - Open the window near shadings and draw everything oriented towards south. - Draw only the active parts : solar panels and shading objects. - Incorporate the origin of sub PV fields in the plan of the roof (0 at the bottom left corner). - Draw the shading objects using the side view for the height and depth dimensions, consider their height from the lowest point of the roof. - Add their position in the main window (of the drawing), negative numbers with the origin at the top right corner. - Re-orient the scene towards 30 west. - Make again the simulation. - Come back to "System" and adjust the "Detailed losses". - Make a third simulation with all the losses "designed".

Front view of the villa :

Main information here are the coordinates of the 4 PV fields, the dimensions of the module and the widths of the balcony and the chimney.

From the side view, you'll need the balcony 's height and depth, the height of the chimney and its location,

"Project design" "Grid Connected"

Choose a location

The next choices are 1 "Albedo - settings", 2 "Orientation" and 3 "System" In albedo, we modify the minimal temperature which can go below - 10 C (default value) in this region. We choose - 20 C but this value should be determined by the local climate exam.

We keep the default values for the albedo but this should be modified if there is regularly snow in winter and if the PV field can be cleaned in case of snow.

The project is saved and we go to "Orientation" : The tilt and azimuth are defined.

In system, we choose the panel and a suitable inverter for the 24 modules. We know the power (24 x 245) which is entered.

We choose a recent inverter from SMA (high efficiency) and define 2 strings of 12 panels. Since this inverter features two separate MPPT, this will allow a complete separation of the 2 strings and the shading effects. The window "Show sizing" allows us to check that the MPP is well in the range of the inverter. The second curve shows that the risk of overload is very low - especially after simulation where the thermal behaviour will be taken into account. Our system is electrically defined and we can make a first simulation which will be the reference without shading losses. The first window at the end of the simulation summaries the main calculations: The "System Production" is necessary to calculate the financial amortization of the project. The "Specific production" is a value useful for comparing systems - it is totally linked to the latitude. In desert location, in can be over 2000 per year. At a latitude higher than 50, it is usually lower than 1000. The "Performance Ratio" is a calculation of quality considering all the losses. A figure higher than 80% corresponds to excellent components and a good design. We save the first simulation under the name "No loss exam".

We come back to the main window and go in "Detailed losses" to precise the description of the system. In the first window "Thermal parameter", we choose "Semi integrated" for our modules which will be fixed over the tiles. This intermediate value of 20 W /m2.k correspond to a mounting where some air flow circulates between the tiles and the modules.

For the DC Ohmic losses, we choose a STC value of 1 %. In small systems, the final values are well below and after simulation, the yearly figure should be around 50 % of the STC value at this latitude. We do not calculate AC ohmic losses where we consider a small distance between the inverter and the energy meter.

The -1.3 % Module efficiency loss (default) corresponds to a positive power tolerance : the panel range becomes 245 to 248 W. The LID value of 0 is one of the advantages of the Sunpower technology. There is no LID with n type wafers. A mismatch of 1 % is easy to reach with 24 panels that can be sorted to even shorter tolerances. We do not consider "Soiling Losses" in this example of villa in a naturally cleaned environment. We do not modify the IAM Losses curve with a standard glass module. The last window of "Unavailability" allows the user to calculate losses from system or grid failures that can be randomly simulated. This window is more useful for studying large PV plants. After this, we do a second simulation which gives very close results to the first one: a small increase of yield comes from the lower DC ohmic losses. The specific production is now 1297 kWh/kWp/y and the performance ratio (PR) is 86.7 %, an increase of 0.3 %.

After these 2 basic simulations, we start the drawing of the roof in "Near Shadings" to study in details the shading effects. In the "Global scene view", choose "Object", "New" and "Rectangular PV plane" to describe the 4 little PV fields on the roof. The whole drawing is done with the roof and the shading obstacles oriented south: this facilitates positioning the elements. At the end of the drawing, the whole scene will be rotated to its correct azimuth. There are 4 rectangles that will be defined. The Plane tilt is already defined (from orientation). In this window, we present the figures for the 1st field made of 11 panels : a width of 1.56 m (panel length) and a length of 8.8 m (11 panels of 0.8 m width). The origins of PV fields are defined at the bottom left corner of the panels. The origin of the small field is taken from the blue print : x = 0.15 m and y = 3.84 m The next 3 windows describe the 3 other PV field.

Field no 1:

Field no 2:

Field no 3:

Field no 4:

We push "OK" which closes the window and put the fields in the "global scene view"

The next steps are drawing the shading objects: Open "Object", "New" and "Elementary shading object". We start with the balcony and we enter its width (x) of 4.1 m (from Blue print drawing) and its length (y) and height (z) taken form the side view (2.82 m and 1.9 m). "OK" to close the window and incorporate the object in the main window.

We see that the balcony is positioned at the front left of the panels fields. The origin of obstacles is at the bottom rear right corner. With "Ctrl B", we open the "Object positioning" window to enter the correct origin of the balcony which is 6.4 m to the east (blue print) and 2.82 m to the north (side view).

We do the same operations with the chimney taking figures from the two plans. The size of the chimney is 0.5 x 0.5 m for the base and a height of 5.1 m if we consider that it is standing on the floor which is the bottom part of the roof. Such a drawing is quickly done because no details of the roof is necessary to study the shading effects: the complete house could be drawn but this would not help in the shading study.

Rotating the complete scene to its correct azimuth (1). The next steps are putting some colours to the elements (2). And studying the effect of shadings at various dates of the year (3).

On this image, we see that in summer at the end of the day, more than half of the field is affected by the shading of the balcony and the chimney. We close the window and run the "Linear table" to get the shadowing percentages for all the sun positions.

We make a new simulation to calculate the linear effect of shadings. We see that the Specific production has dropped from 1297 kWh/kWp/yr to 1266 kWh/kWp/yr due to the effect of linear shadings. In the last page of the Report, the detailed loss exam shows that the linear shading effect is -2.2 %.

The next steps are to evaluate more precisely the string shading effect. First using the image of the sun's trajectory, we choose which panels should be connected in series. Our inverter features two separate MPPT inputs, so the strings can be different, they will not be connected in parallel and there will not be any current between them. From the image on page 17, we see that the 11 panels of Field 1 are not at all affected by any shading, so we decide to keep them connected together for the first string and to connect together all the other panels (13 modules). In "System", we define two sub fields of 11 and 13 modules for each MPPT input, we check in "Detailed losses" that the DC ohmic loss is 1 % and run a simulation.

We see that the Specific production has dropped slightly from 1266 kWh/kWp/yr to 1260 kWh/kWp/yr due to an increase of inverter losses.

In the previous simulation, there was no loss of power saturation, here this 0.8 % loss comes from the 13 modules string where the ratio Panel power / Inverter power is 1.27. One possible solution would be to increase the power of the inverter and to choose the 6 kW model - the simulation shows that the Specific production increases to 1261 kWh/kWp/yr - there is no more saturation but the inverter efficiency is lower because of the lower panel power.

We open the window "Module layout" to describe the 2 strings. The 4 fields are described: Field 1 :

Field 2 :

Field 3 :

Field 4 :

The next steps are the electrical description of the 2 strings. The panel incorporates 3 by-pass diodes in length (for every 24 cells). We see 3 equivalent surfaces per panel to illustrate this property. The String 1 (S1) will connect the 2, 3 and 4 fields. S2 will connect the field 1.

Field 4 :

Field 3 :

Field 2 :

Field 1 :

The shading is shown for each field and the resultant I/V curve is calculated. The example below shows the effect on mai 21 at 19h30 for the Field 3 and the I/V curve of the 13 modules string.

We can now simulate these two defined strings and the shading effect on yield. We come back to "Near shading" window and choose "Detailed, according to Module Layout" before to run the simulation. The simulation is much slower because the calculations become very important. We see that the Specific production has dropped again from 1260 kWh/kWp/yr to 1226 kWh/kWp/yr due to the effect of string shadings.

The exam of detailed losses shows one new position : -2.6 % Shadings: Electrical Loss detailed module calculation

The exam of detailed losses after a simulation allows the designer to control what improvement he could bring to his design to increase the yield. Let's check all these figures of gain and losses: + 8.7 % Gain over horizontal : for a system mounted on an existing roof, there is no possibility to change the tilt or the azimuth of the panels. - 2.2 % Near shading irradiance loss: here again, unless the house is modified (chimney cut ...), there is no possible change. - 3.0 % IAM factor on global: this term can be improved in case the panel is changed with a model using a textured front glass. The value will go down for a small latitude since the sun climbs much quicker than at higher latitudes. - 2.1 % PV loss due to irradiance level: this term comes from the efficiency of the panel at low light level. Same variation with latitude as IAM factor. - 4.9 % PV loss due to temperature: a better back ventilation would improve that value - the choice of the support is important. For integrated modules in the roof, it becomes the highest loss. - 2.6 % Electrical String shading loss: a different cabling can modify this figure. + 1.2 % Module quality loss: here the supplier offers a positive power guaranty, in that case a loss becomes a gain. - 1.0 % Mismatch loss: that value can be lowered if the panels are sorted. - 0.6 % Ohmic loss : the cable section is a financial choice (besides safety and heat dissipation considerations). - 3.0 % Inverter efficiency loss: reflects the quality of the inverter. - 0.8 % Inverter over nominal power loss: a higher power inverter can improve this. - 0.6 % Inverter loss due to power threshold : this inverter works better at higher voltage - in our case, with this panel, we do not have many choices.

To test if we can improve this inverter losses, we decide to come back to a design with 2 strings of 12 modules which should lower the over load loss of one MPPT (13 modules) and improve the voltage of the 11 modules string. The field 4 is modified with one panel linked to each string:

The new simulation produces the following results:

We see that the Specific production has improved from 1226 kWh/kWp/yr to 1235 kWh/kWp/yr - let's see the loss diagram:

As expected, the inverter overload loss has disappeared and one astonished point is a lower string shading loss of 2.5 % compared to 2.6 %. We had the impression that keeping the 11 panels of field 1 alone was the best choice but the gain of equilibrating the 2 strings is higher.

Conclusion: Studying the effect of shadings on a PV field becomes very quick and easy after having well described the system. The drawings seem at first complicated but with experience are easy to do and the results are impressive.