Power generation characteristics of vertical bifacial photovoltaic arrays in heavy snow regions

Abstract

Conventional tilted photovoltaic systems often experience reduced electricity generation and potential damage due to snow accumulation. In contrast, vertical bifacial photovoltaic systems demonstrate greater resilience against snow-related damage, making them particularly suitable for snowy regions. This study explores the electricity generation characteristics of vertical bifacial photovoltaic systems in areas where snow depths exceed 1 meter, through both experimental and simulation analyses. Experiments conducted on a vertical bifacial system over two winter seasons showed no signs of damage or breakage. Additionally, during snowy periods, the power generation ratio relative to global horizontal irradiance increased by 55%, primarily due to irradiance reflected from the snow surface. However, this gain was offset by a 17% decrease due to partial shading by snow. Furthermore, integrating ray tracing with electrical circuit analysis revealed that implementing separate maximum power point tracking for the upper and lower sections of a single-row vertical bifacial photovoltaic array could alleviate losses in electricity generation caused by deep snow covering the photovoltaic cells. This study advances our understanding of the impact of snow on the power generation of vertical bifacial photovoltaic systems in heavy-snow regions and is expected to contribute to the development of more efficient designs in the future.

Keywords

• bifacial pv module
• heavy snow region
• partial shading
• mismatch loss
• ray tracing