System Integration

A comprehensive understanding of the global performance and extra gain offered by a bifacial module remains an elusive goal for PV owners and EPCs due to variations arising from different design, manufacturing and testing methods. Vicente Parra, Ruperto J. Gómez, José C. Vázquez and Francisco Álvarez of Enertis review the main sources of variability and outstanding uncertainties that must be addressed as the industry seeks to define standard rules for reliably selecting, purchasing and deploying bifacial PV modules.

On 10 April 2020, South Africa’s biggest solar PV complex to date sprang into operation as the final phase was completed. The timing was extremely fortunate, just a day ahead of the country’s government announcing a nationwide lockdown as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to spread worldwide.

Commissioning should be as integral to the installation of a PV plant as a pre-flight checklist is to an aeroplane journey. Sara Verbruggen reports on the latest tools and technologies being deployed to ensure a smooth commissioning process and a project that operates safely and optimally.

In August 2019, a team at BayWa r.e. began construction of its 14.5MWp Sekdoornfloating solar project near the town of Zwolle in the Netherlands. Just eight weeks later, it was complete, 40,000 solar panels afloat on the former sandpit.

As the deployment of bifacial solar projects worldwide accelerates, so too is the industry’s understanding of how to design and build systems that play to the technology’s main strengths. Drawing on recent experiences in the field, Beth Copanas and James Willett from RES outline some of the technical lessons learned on realising bifacial’s full potential.

When solar meets science. Inside GridServes’ ground-breaking York Solar Farm.

The low prices achieved in some of the recent Middle Eastern solar auctions have been made possible in a large part because of the inclusion of bifacial module technology. Tom Kenning examines how booming deployment in the US is helping drive bifacial’s uptake in the Middle East, where the conditions are optimal for the technology.

Ensuring the safety, performance and durability of non-module components in a PV system is an ongoing challenge for the solar industry. Robert Puto of TÜV SÜD looks at the latest testing and certification programmes in place to help bring greater certainty to balance-ofsystem procurement.

Understanding the bankability of module suppliers is a critical aspect of solar project development. Finlay Colville, head of research for PV Tech & Solar Media, presents a model that allows scoring, rating and benchmarking of PV module suppliers by bankability for commercial, industrial and utility segment deployment. Quarterly rankings enable project developers and site investors to shortlist module suppliers when seeking to minimise module supplier risk and maximise site returns over the lifetime of owned assets.

Cable manufacturers are well placed to capitalise on solar’s rapid global growth. However, to successfully exploit this continuing development, it is important to understand where growth is focused, why it is focused in these areas and the environmental and legislative challenges that it creates, writes Mark Froggatt.