Optimal Design and Parametric Assessment of Grid-Connected Solar Power Plants in Iran, a Review

Solar energy is used for domestic, industrial, and power plant consumption. From a nation-wide perspective, it has attracted increasing attention due to creating opportunities, reducing fossil fuels consumption, and also meeting the requirements for reduction of environmental pollutants. Given its geographical location which has endowed Iran with a desirable level of solar energy as a renewable source of energy, it is the first paper aimed to conduct a potentiometric study of constructing a 20 kW power plant in 31 capital cities in Iran, considering all the existing losses. PVsyst 6.7 and Meteonorm 7.1 software packages are used for analysis. Results showed that the required area for monocrystalline solar panels was less than that for polycrystalline ones and for polycrystalline less than thin-film panels. Furthermore, solar cells with higher manufacturing technology incurred lower costs, so that monocrystalline cells produced the cheapest solar-powered electricity, while the electricity generated by thin-film panels was the most expensive. In addition, it was found that ventilation had less impact on monocrystalline solar cells than polycrystalline, and less on polycrystalline panels than thin-film ones. The highest (39˚) and lowest (27˚) annual optimum tilt angle were related to Bojnoord and Bandar Abbas, respectively. Also, the results revealed that the highest (0.833) and lowest (0.771) annual performance ratios were obtained for Ardabil and Ahvaz, respectively. The highest (35276) and lowest (24031) amount of annual energy injected to the grid (kWh) were associated with Zahedan and Sari, respectively. Average annual energy injected to the grid (kWh) for the studied stations was 30942. For a more detailed evaluation of the effect that each type of losses had on the energy produced, annual loss diagrams, which are the most important outputs of PVsyst software, were evaluated for Zahedan and Sari stations.