The webinar was held by EQ Magazine on 29th March 2022. It was moderated by Mr. Goutam Samanta, Head PV Technology (Moderator). Mr. Gautam Samanta discussed very efficiently the Era of the Bi-facial solar modules.
In the following webinar, Mr. Samanta very delicately discussed the various transitions from mono facial to bi-facial solar modules, new technologies, innovations, and every challenge with all the great opportunities from the panelist’s outlook.
Mr. Ravindran Sundarsingh, Chief Technical Officer- Renewables – ACME GROUP Talks over the advantages and the interesting challenging factors of bifacial solar modules, he further extended the conversation with the careful measures which have to be kept in mind, while talking about the viability of bifacial modules, there’s much more extra care is required when choosing the size, configuration, during quality processes in the factory and even during wind up. To this extent bifacial is slightly more complicated than mono facial. Mr. Sundar singh suggested the correlation with the site measurement at a global level, and also advised doing your ground measurement, because grading the ground is the key factor for the developers, as it’s a good cost reduction. But to avoid mismatch it is always good to have an equal level under all the modules for bi-facial. In further conversation, he shared his thoughts about the idea of albedo improvement, which the designer should keep in mind to ensure a sustainable arrangement while selecting the material, which could last at least 25 years.
Mr. Jerry Jin, Technical Head product and solutions – Longi Solar Shared his significant ideas on bi-facial concerned questions, in which he gave an ideal brief about the mechanism of bifacial energy gain and pointed out the challenges while increasing the bi-facial on the rear side. Mr. Jerry discussed the primary ambiguous factors, like the Ground Albedo, module height, Ground Coverage Ratio, the DHI ratio (Diffused Horizontal Irradiance), and the shading on the backside. He further suggested some key solutions considering the above factors, like increasing the ground albedo, increasing the module height up to one meter, and boosting the DHI ratio, which would upgrade the bi-facial power gain, he also suggested the distance of 40mm-50mm to the backside glass for the module, which could help to maintain the lowest power loss.
Mr. Sheshachalan BS, Vice President Projects – Enerparc Energy Expressed his views on challenges and some key factors, which should be given more importance when selecting a new solar module. In his opinion, one of the salient challenges is the selection of the components and how to do an overall system design, for which people need to understand how the bi-facial module works in the field. Since the technology is precisely new, there are no long time-tested data on these kinds of results. Another major point is, that we need to understand how to size the system for optimal design. One more prime challenging factor is the albedo factor, people need to choose an accurate albedo factor for the installation, as the higher the albedo factor, the better the result will be.
Mr Atul Pachauri , Head O&M – o2 Power Speaking on the challenges and the solutions, discussed one of the primary challenges of cleaning the module from the backside. In the present day scenario on account of sustainability factor, one and all are installing the robotic cleaning, waterless robotic cleaning, but the major drawback is robotic cleaning cleans the module superbly from the front side yet in reality there are no provisions accessible for cleaning the module from the backside, which will trouble the consumers in the later phase and probably would not get the optimum output for which it has designed for. Taking the conversation forward, Mr. Atul introduced us to another challenge of calculating the performance ratio which is the prime KPI for any the solar PV plant and the measurement of the module temperature is crucial, so there’s a vital requirement for temperature corrected PR as per the IEC 61724, there’s one solution came into the picture that is, module or cell temperature can be calculated by the help of NERL method. So NERL can give us the provision to calculate module temper
Mr. Srinivas Galla – DGM Design & Engineering – ReNew Power Put his views on the importance of budgeting. As various operational challenges need to be considered while budgeting, he further pointed out a few challenging aspects, firstly the tracker part which is generally recommended for a bi-facial for a good obtain. Secondly, the role of GCR also plays a vital role in achieving the optimum specific yield from designing. The third aspect is the albedo factor which needs to be taken care of for the best results. The last aspect is the cleaning of the modules which still needs good manpower since the bi-facial module cannot be cleaned appropriately with robotic cleaning. so in his opinion, it is crucial to consider all these aspects while budgeting, if any of these aspects are missing in the financial model while arriving at the LCOE, it will have an impact in the long run which leads to the unavailability of the project or the technology.
Dr. Nikhil Agrawal – GM- Design, and Engineering – Avaada Energy Pvt Ltd. Discussed the importance of the small test bed and the learnings from the solar technology, that’s selected for the modules. Mr. Nikhil shared Longi’s perc-based bi-facial modules which have been launched so far. These mono-perc, perc-based bi-facial modules are used for most of the projects which are based on N-type wafers. In further discussion, he talks about the significance of the actual albedo measurement, as it’s very important to have the actual measurement of at least 4 to 5 locations on the site and the long-term data of at least 1 location for a better result. In his opinion, meaningful data and a better selection of the technologies can yield much better generational numbers.
Mr. Sadanand Tewari – Senior Manager – EnKing International (EKI Energy Services Ltd). continued the panel with an intense discussion about the sustainable solution of the clean energy for the future, he gave a brief introduction about the Enking International, a company that offers the end to end solution of the sustainable road map, and also helps the companies to achieve their climate goals and ambition, basically working for the community uplifting and provide sustainability services. Mr. Sadanand further talk about the importance of carbon financing and explained very elegantly the carbon credit and the carbon trading concept.
