BAKU, Azerbaijan, Nov. 6
By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:
German GOLDBECK SOLAR wants to create a solid evaluation basis for the future use of bifacial modules in various conditions with implementation of the test project in Kazakhstan’s Akadyr, the company told Trend.
The company official said that GOLDBECK SOLAR has the claim to be the best supplier of solar systems in Europe. To this end, the German EPC company is continuously working on large projects such as the Power Plant Solar Park in Akadyr.
GOLDBECK SOLAR also uses the modules for its numerous solar projects around the world. During the expansion of the project in Akadyr, Kazakhstan, the EPC company took the opportunity to test double-sided modules.
“Kazakhstan is a popular country for solar projects due to its vegetation and climate conditions. The Power Plant Akadyr was therefore not the first project in Kazakhstan for GOLDBECK SOLAR. The first phase of Akadyr with a capacity of 50 MW was built and commissioned in 2019. With the award of the contract for the second construction phase, GOLDBECK also took over the extension of the solar power plant located in the Karaganda region of Kazakhstan by a further 26 MW. The project extension was completed in June 2020 so that the entire Akadyr plant now has a total capacity of 76 MW. The technical specifications for the second construction phase were optimized for the use of bifacial modules to turn this photovoltaic plant also in a test facility that will be able to prove the efficiency of the bifacial modules. Over the next years, the analysis will provide sound information for the future development of the technology,” the company said.
The company added that bifacial solar cells are tested frequently to obtain better efficiency from solar modules. This is because, the double-sided modules are intended to absorb light on both the front and the back sides, which increases the efficiency in several ways. On the one hand, the bifacial cells can capture direct sunlight at the front, as well as indirect radiation at the back.
Greater interest in the bifacial modules already exists in individual regions of the Middle East and Asia. This is mainly since in these regions large open space plants are being built in desert-like regions. The project in Akadyr is one of these.
The company is also pursuing the goal of achieving a better basis and greater comparability of bifacial solar cells and standard modules through the test facility in Akadyr. Thus, GOLDBECK SOLAR would like to push further development in the solar industry already now.
Within the framework of the Akadyr project, the use of the bifacial solar cells and the installation of six 630 kVA inverters did not result in any changes in the configuration from an electrical point of view, but the angle and height of the substructure differed due to its alignment with the bifacial modules.
The different tilt angles and heights are primarily intended to answer the question of how these affect the efficiency of the modules and where the optimum lies. In the long term, this also allows better statements to be made about performance, which up to now have often only been based on manufacturers' forecasts.
With the test project in Akadyr, GOLDBECK SOLAR wants to create a solid evaluation basis for the future use of bifacial modules in various conditions. The solar plant in the Karaganda region of Kazakhstan is well suited to this purpose, as the very low vegetation in summer does not massively change the albedo. At the same time, the winter with almost five months of constant snow allows a detailed analysis of the effect of the albedo on the profit that the bifacial modules offer compared to standard modules.
“With Power Plant Akadyr, GOLDBECK SOLAR has created a unique opportunity to compare the performance of single and double-sided modules at different angles of inclination and clear heights on an individual inverter basis. This is because the solar power plant is currently the only known system of this size that can do exactly this. In a year, it will be possible to achieve initial comparative results, considering the parameters relating to temperature and environmental conditions in Kazakhstan in summer and winter,” the company said.