Early performance for the roof-mounted, 20-kW thin film CdTe PV array at Jasper Ridge

Author

Scofield, John H. ; Cohen, Philippe ; Tronson, Cay ; Gould, Scott

Author_Institution

Dept. of Phys. & Astron., Oberlin Coll., OH, USA

fYear

2005

Firstpage

1623

Lastpage

1626

Abstract

Here we report early performance for the grid-connected, 20-kW CdTe PV array installed on the roof of the Leslie Shao-ming Sun Field Station at the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. The array was installed in May 2002. Data are reported for 20-mos beginning April 2003. The array originally consisted of 275, BP Solar 80 W thin-film CdTe modules arranged in 11-module strings. The monitoring system logged data from 9 sensors on 1-min intervals. Monitoring showed problems with maximum power tracking associated with module degradation, elevated module temperatures, and the finite voltage window of the 208 VAC-Sp inverter. The problems were addressed in May 2004 by rewiring the array and reprogramming the inverter, resulting in a 20% increase in energy production.

Keywords

cadmium compounds; invertors; monitoring; solar cell arrays; thin film devices; 20 kW; 208 V; 80 W; CdTe; Jasper Ridge; Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve; Leslie Shao-ming Sun Field Station; elevated module temperatures; finite voltage window; maximum power tracking; module degradation; monitoring system; thin film CdTe PV array; Biosensors; Degradation; Inverters; Monitoring; Production; Sensor systems; Sun; Temperature sensors; Transistors; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 2005. Conference Record of the Thirty-first IEEE

ISSN

0160-8371

Print_ISBN

0-7803-8707-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2005.1488456

Filename

1488456