Investigation of solar PV performance under Doha weather using a customized measurement and monitoring system

A key factor in future eco-friendly and reliable energy systems for network stability is energy prediction of renewable resources. However, the climate-induced performance degradation represents a major drawback to solar making them unreliable for unattended or remote plants. We propose a customized cost-effective solution that allows monitoring and predicting the performance of PV systems, fostering thus efficient planning and control strategies for network stability. More specifically, we design an in-house system featuring a buck-boost converter enhanced with a maximum power point tracker (MPPT) serving as a PV load, sensors' system that collects climatic parameters including dust, wireless Radio, and a LabVIEW based monitoring and recording station. We have presented thoroughly all the system design steps. The system was deployed in Doha over a long period of time under harsh environment. It allows accessing and processing of recorded data ubiquitously over the web or from a database. Based on the recorded data, the power output for a given PV technology under any environment can be analyzed. Results predict that the maximum power output from a Poly-crystalline panel decreases by around 30% for a dust exposure of five months. This would suggest cleaning needs and advise on cleaning frequencies of PV panels.