Performance of Grid-Connected Photovoltaic System in Two Sites in Kuwait

Abstract

This paper presents an assessment of the electricity generated by photovoltaic (PV) grid-connected systems in Kuwait. Three years of meteorological data are provided for two main sites in Kuwait, namely, Al-Wafra and Mutla. These data and a PV grid-connected system mathematical model are used to assist a 100 kWp grid-connected PV system proposed for both sites. The proposed systems show high energy productivity whereas the annual capacity factors for Mutla and Al-Wafra are 22.25% and 21.6%, respectively. Meanwhile the annual yield factors for Mutla and Al-Wafra are 1861 kWh/kWp/year and 1922.7 kWh/kWp/year, respectively. On the other hand the cost of the energy generated by both systems is about 0.1 USD/kWh which is very close to the price of the energy sold by the Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW). Furthermore the invested money is recovered during the assumed life cycle time whereas the payback period for both sites is about 15 years. This work contains worthwhile technical information for those who are interested in PV technology investment in Kuwait.

Technical and Economic Performance of 1MW Grid-connected PV system in Saudi Arabia

“…Figure 3 shows a sample of recorded solar irradiance for one day. Figures 2 and 3 indicate that Qassim region is a promised region for solar energy applications, but the average of ambient temperature which reaches 37 o C in summer would reduce the overall efficiency of PV system, as an increase in cell temperature by 1 o C decreases PV module's power by 0.5-0.6% [7]. This means the expected output power of PV modules will be lower than mentioned in their data sheets because, the PV modules are being tested at 25 o C..…”

Reliability Assessment of Transformerless PV Inverters considering Mission Profiles

“…As a result, for the grid-connected PV systems, the mission profile (i.e., solar irradiance and ambient temperature) is actually a reflection of the intermittent nature of the solar PV energy [38,39], and consequently it has an inherent relationship with the entire system performance, including the thermal loading performance. The mission profile can be a series of multitime scales, for example, a minute mission profile or a yearly mission profile, and it is usually taken as the input for the reliability analysis in the field of power electronics converters [29,[39][40][41][42], which is also focused on in this paper.…”

“…Table 2. In order to create the lookup tables for long-term mission profiles, several constant operating conditions (e.g., solar irradiance: 0.8 kW/m 2 , ambient temperature: 25 ∘ C) have been simulated firstly, where a perturb-andobserve maximum power point (MPP) tracking algorithm has been used [33][34][35]38]. Figure 7 exemplifies the simulation model for a full-bridge inverter system.…”

Proposition for the application of a grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) system: Koya city as a study case

“…Finally, the size of the inverter in the PV system is calculated optimally [6]. Table1 shows the most important parameters which are necessary for the system design calculations [4,6,7]: The module and inverter cost alone makes up about 76% of the total investment cost [6].…”

“…Table1 shows the most important parameters which are necessary for the system design calculations [4,6,7]: The module and inverter cost alone makes up about 76% of the total investment cost [6]. As pointed in [8,9] and, according to NREL Energy Analysis office, it is expected that the unit cost of PV energy will be half of the present day value until 2025 that decline is quite high compared to other renewable systems as shown in figure 1 below:…”