Investigation the Effect of Inverter Power Clipping Losses on the Efficiency of Photovoltaic Power Plants

The inverter is one of the main components of photovoltaic power plants. Since the power output of the power plant is directly related to the inverter's performance, the inverter losses have an important effect on the generation and efficiency of the photovoltaic plant. The most important of inverter losses are the inverter clipping and inverter efficiency losses. Some factors affecting clipping losses and inverter efficiency are the sea surface height, ambient temperature, input power DC, wind speed, air density, radiation, and so on. Due to the high radiation potential, the wide area, and the variety of climate in Kerman province, in this article, Kerman province has been selected for the installation of photovoltaic power plants and the effects of environmental factors on inverter clipping losses and inverter efficiency are studied in different areas of Kerman. In simulating the effects of several factors such as wind speed, radiation, altitude, ambient temperature, wiring losses, inverter power consumption during operation and at the night, shadow and dust losses are considered. In addition, the effect of the inverter DC to AC ratio on the inverter clipping losses, power generation capacity, and on the capacity factor of photovoltaic plant have been investigated.