Solar PV energy: From material to use, and the most commonly used techniques to maximize the power output of PV systems: A focus on solar trackers and floating solar panels

Abstract

Photovoltaic (PV) systems are gaining more and more visibility as the world power demand is increasing. Unconditional power source availability, ease of implementation, and environmental friendliness of these systems are their major advantages. Nonetheless, the high initial cost and low conversion efficiency of solar PV panels, as well as the intensive use of land, stand as their major drawbacks. Over the years, several improvements have been made by manufacturers, research centers and researchers around the globe to overcome the most significant drawbacks of PV systems and to improve their performance. These improvements are made either at the materials level, such as increasing the conversion efficiency of PV panels while minimizing manufacturing costs, or at the entire system level, such as maximizing or optimizing the power drawn from PV panels. MPPT controllers, cooling systems, cleaning systems, solar tracking systems, and floating PV systems are the most popular techniques that have been introduced to increase the performance of PV systems and for making the maximum usage possible out of the available solar energy. This paper mainly focuses on PV power optimization using solar tracking and floating PV systems, as they are currently among the hot topics in solar power generation and are gaining the interest of researchers around the globe, especially floating PV systems that have emerged recently. Therefore, this paper provides a comprehensive review on these two technologies, including their concepts, benefits, and drawbacks, as well as a summarized review of literature on these topics. In addition to this, a brief introduction about solar PV energy from material to use is given in this paper.

Keywords

• PV systems
• PV energy optimization
• Floating solar panels
• Solar tracking system