The generation efficiency of PV based generating units has mainly been affected by the amount of solar radiation incident on PV panels. 5 Solar radiation magnitude incident on panels depends on two important factors, direction and tilt angle of panels.
Among various techniques of the effective harnessing of PV energy, the installation of solar panels at an optimal tilt angle can play an important role in order to enhance the generation efficiency of the PV-based generating units.
In addition, the impact of the optimal angle on total power generation and carbon emissions is analyzed. The results reveal that the proposed approach is quite effective to increase the power generation of PV panels up to 7–8% and can be practically implemented in any location throughout the world.
Therefore, fixed PV installations with a well-engineered tilt angle are still prevalent in PV industry . The optimum performance of a PV panel depends on the amount of incident solar radiation on it. So, a panel needs to be inclined in such an angle that maximum sunrays intercept its top surface vertically.
Rowlands et al. modeled and determined solar radiation data and analyzed PV panel performance in Canada. The optimum tilt angle was seen quite lower than latitude of 45°, and the azimuth angle was close due south. The energy produced for different tilt angles and azimuthal angles using a single panel is shown in Fig. 10.
The solar energy transformed to the solar PV panels majorly depends on its surface tilt angles relative to the horizontal plane and the PV modules orientation azimuth angle (γ). The azimuth angle gives the position of earth with respect to north–south axis.