Efficiency of Solar Trackers and Bifacial Photovoltaic Panels for Southern Regions of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Uzbekistan

One of the necessary requirements in Russia for obtaining subsidies that will compensate investments in a solar power plant (SPP) is to achieve the normative value of the capacity factor (CF). Although the stimulation of solar generation in the Republic of Uzbekistan is unconditional, the task of increasing the CF is also urgent for Uzbekistan. The purpose of the study was to assess the impact on a solar plants CF by the use of two methods for increasing the solar influx on the surface of a SPP solar battery; the use of Sun tracking systems (trackers) and bifacial photovoltaic panels. Calculation of the CF was carried out for several types of photovoltaic panels in the climatic conditions of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the south of Russia by dynamic simulation using the TRNSYS code. Actinometric and climatic data were taken from the NASA POWER satellite observation database; the spatial resolution was 1° × 1° in latitude and longitude. Photovoltaic panels were described by the five-parameter model, whose parameters were determined using the manufacturers’ datasheets. It is shown that the use of vertical axis and tilt axis trackers can increase the CF in comparison with fixed panels by 6.5–6.6%, which is close to the effect of biaxial trackers (up to 7.0% of CF growth). It was found that the use of bifacial panels was most effective together with tilt axis trackers (the increase of CF is up to 4.1%). This effect is less for fixed panels and other types of trackers (up to 3.6%). According to the simulations, the magnitude of surface albedo (without the use of special reflectors) has almost no effect on the usage of bifacial panels.