Performance Comparison between Low Concentration Photovoltaic and Fixed Angle PV Systems

This paper focuses on the comparison between two different Photovoltaic systems. Both of them are located in the same place in the south part of Italy - Sicily. The first system is a photovoltaic system (PV) with a fixed tilt angle of 30° and an azimuth orientation of 0° South; its peak power is about 1.63 kWp and its 10 modules are made up of polycrystalline silicon for a total area of 13.13 m2. The second system is a low concentration photovoltaic system (LCPV) with a biaxial suntracker and a concentration of 25 suns; its peak power is about 4.65 kWp and its modules are made up of monocrystalline Silicon for a total area of 44.6 m2. In order to analyse the behaviour of these two different systems the most common Performance Indexes (YR, Yf, PR and η) has been used for the comparison, starting from the measured radiation data for both systems. The experimental data were treated for almost one year. Moreover it was analysed the thread of these indexes for two typical days in different seasons. Analysis results showed that LCPV has better performances (according the PR index) during the summer months thanks to a greater percentage of direct irradiation, while the efficiency of the fixed angle PV system is higher during the other months.