The effect of snowfall and icing on the sustainability of the power output of a grid-connected photovoltaic system in Konya, Turkey

Abstract

When the module surface is covered with various factors such as snow and icing which prevent the solarirradiance from reaching the photovoltaic cells, the power production of the system and its performance decrease. Thepurpose of this study is to determine the energy production losses of a grid-connected photovoltaic plant due to snowfalland icing. The effect of snowfall and icing has been examined on a photovoltaic system consisting of a hybrid inverterwith two separate maximum power point tracking inputs and 36 monocrystalline modules, which are mounted on thesupporting system horizontally in the south direction and at a constant tilt angle of 30 ◦. The plant area is located in apriority and snowy region (Konya,Turkey) where large-scale photovoltaic system installations are carried out. In orderto evaluate the effect of snowfall, the minute resolution data of the hybrid inverter which provides connection to the gridis used. The change over time of the power generated by the two arrays of the plant was examined comparatively. Forcomparison, one of the arrays was continuously cleared. The recorded data was used to determine the expected energyoutput of the array covered with snow. Besides, the solar irradiance and ambient temperature data obtained from themeteorological station were used to accurately identify and evaluate the effects of snowfall with digital images recordedin the site area.The results showed that surface clearing of modules had a significant positive effect on the power output of thesystem. In the array entirely covered with snow, the daily energy loss exceeds 93%. In months of heavy snowfall, themonthly energy loss is 18% depending on time of being covered with snow of the modules. When the production dataof 2017 and 2018 is evaluated, it is seen that the total energy loss of the plant varies between 1% and 2%.