Performance Comparisons of Regional Photovoltaic Installations

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the performance of photovoltaic (PV) systems across four solar fields within a 1.3 km radius at Princeton University to explore how hyperlocal environmental factors affect energy yield. Despite similar irradiance and ambient conditions, differences in surrounding surfaces (grassy vs. concrete) led to notable variations in module temperature. Heavy snow fall events were identified as resulting in different power output behavior even in fields with the same geometric configuration. A custom power output model, accounting for tilt and temperature, flagged unexpected power output anomalies, leveraging a combination of partial on field irradiance measurements with online irradiance data. Results show that environmental factors do affect the power yield of solar fields in the same region, underscoring the value in further examining such factors to enhance the performance of solar installations in the future.