Solar photovoltaic is a renewable energy technology that utilizes sunlight in order to generate electricity. A photovoltaic system is comprised of one or multiple solar panels, made up of solar photovoltaic cells, and a solar inverter.
Deline et al. (2020) reported on the performance of 250 PV systems throughout the United States, comprising 157 megawatts (MW) direct current (DC) capacity, to have an average PR of 93.5%.
With the continued growth of energy demand and global climate change, new energy has become the focus of national energy development (Loiter and Norberg-Bohm 1999). As an important part of the long-term development plan of new energy, photovoltaic (PV) industry has the characteristics of safety, adequacy and cleanliness (Fthenakis 2000).
A present-day crystalline silicon photovoltaic (PV) module is a multi-layer composite, where each layer has to fulfil special requirements. The main purpose of this layered encapsulation structure is mechanical stability and high functionality combined with optimized power output and electrical safety [, , ].
The average energy ratio of 74.6% is close to the median of 76.0%, confirming that the distribution is not dominated by the outliers. It is unrealistic to assume the PV systems will deliver 100% of the model-estimated performance due to the associated maintenance, staff time and attention, and expense required.
What’s more, Ashfaq, Hussain, and Giri (2017) refer that 90% of the weight of a PV module can be used as remanufactured material and there is no significant difference between remanufactured PV panels and new PV panels in terms of power generation.