Bifacial solar photovoltaic panels and Horizontal Dual Axis Solar Tracker
Theme 3: Bifacial solar photovoltaic panels and Horizontal Dual Axis Solar Tracker
Bi-facial solar photovoltaic panels are increasing their market share in usage and fast replacing the mono-facial solar photovoltaic panels in the market. The reason is very simple. Bi-facial solar panels open up avenues for productivity and can increase the energy efficiency of solar photovoltaic power plants which was hitherto dependent solely on the efficiency of the solar cells.
What is a bi-facial solar photovoltaic panel?
The construction of solar photovoltaic panels used to be as follows till the advent of the bi-facial solar photovoltaic panels.
A solar photovoltaic panel houses solar cells arranged in one plane and covered by transparent glass at the top side allowing the direct sunrays to fall on the top side of the solar cells, and with a back sheet at the bottom side that does not allow any reflected sunlight to reach the bottom side of the solar cells.
Generally, both sides of a solar cell can generate power when sunlight is allowed to fall on either the top side or bottom side of the solar cell surface.
While the top side of the solar cells normally receives direct sun rays, the bottom side of the solar cells can receive only the reflected sunlight either from the albedo or from the surface at the bottom of the solar photovoltaic panels when mounted on a module mounting structure or any tracking systems.
The following table depicts the advantages of using bi-facial solar panels on the 3 types of solar photovoltaic installations.
New wpDataTable
| S. No. | Type of solar photovoltaic power plant installations | Advantages of using bi-facial solar panels | % of additional power that could be generated | Additional power generation mainly depends on | Cost-effectiveness |
| 1 | Fixed-tilt installation | Very limited | 3% to 5% | Albedo reflection only | Very marginal |
| 2 | Single-axis solar tracker installation | Limited | 30% (Maximum)Fixed-tilt installation | E-W tracking + Albedo reflection | Marginal |
| 3 | Dual-axis solar tracker installation | Most advantageous | 100% (Maximum) | E-W and N-S tracking + Albedo reflection + Sunlight reflectors | Very good |
The biggest advantage of bi-facial solar panels is their price. The price difference between mono-facial solar panels and bifacial solar panels is almost the same.
So, how to use the bi-facial solar panels for their fullest potential for productivity is based on the application of the bi-facial solar panels in various types of solar power plant installations at our disposal.
Even though bifacial solar panels are available in the market, unless they are used for their fullest capability it is of no use.
So, the bi-facial solar panels when used on a horizontal dual-axis solar tracker generate the highest power generation and it is the best choice and combination.
No doubt, the combination of Bifacial solar photovoltaic panels and Horizontal Dual Axis Solar Trackers increases the energy generation efficiency of solar photovoltaic power plants by over 100%, which is unprecedented in the 70 years history of solar photovoltaic power generation!