Comparative Performance Assessment of different Solar PV Module Technologies

At the present flash in time, renewable energy sources have achieved great worth for modern day society. The main reason for this boom is the need to use substitute sources of energy to fossil fuels which are free of CO2 emissions and contamination. Among the current renewable energy sources, the growth of solar PV has been spectacular. The PV Module itself accounts for around half of total PV system costs. The continuous reduction in PV Modules cost is therefore a key element of improving the competiveness of PV. Therefore different module technologies developed. While crystalline Si is the most mature PV technology but is more expensive whereas thin film technology is cheaper and has additional advantages but has less efficiency than crystalline. So it is important to know the suitable module technology as well as the electronic circuitry as per requirement. The objective of the present study is to assess the suitability of different PV technologies under Indian climatic conditions. This paper deals with the comparative analysis of two different module technologies i.e. polycrystalline and CdTe of same rating, both technologies are first used with MPPT based charged controller and then the same technologies are used with PWM charge controller. Along with this the performance of poly-crystalline silicon type PV modules has been investigated at different tilt angles. This paper is mainly divided into four sections, first section presents the overview of photo voltaic technologies used, section second represents the experimental setup and equipment used for the experiment, section third shows the methodology of test, whereas the discussion of result is represented in section fourth. Keywords— MPPT Charge controller, CO2 emission, Polycrystalline, CdTe PV Module.