Outdoor performance evaluation of photovoltaic modules using contour plots

The impact of environmental parameters on different types of Si-based photovoltaic (PV) modules (single crystalline Si (sc-Si), amorphous Si (a-Si) and a-Si/ microcrystalline Si (μc-Si)) which have different spectral responses were characterized using contour plots. The contour plots of PV performance as a function of module temperature and spectral irradiance distribution were created to separate the impact of the two environmental parameters. The performance of the sc-Si PV module was dominated by the module temperature while those of a-Si and a-Si/μc-Si ones were mainly influenced by the spectral irradiance distribution. Furthermore, the frequency of outdoor conditions and the reliability of the contour plots of the PV performance were discussed for the evaluation of PV modules by means of energy production.