A major obstacle to the implementation of large-scale PV power plants is that the cost of these systems is almost entirely up-front, with the financial returns spread over the life of the system, around 25 years. Predicting the output of these plants is critical to forecasting future revenue.

A manufacturer’s power rating for a solar panel comes from measurements in a laboratory, and says little about the energy the panel will deliver over time in the field.

CSIRO and its partners are investigating the way solar PV cells respond to typical variations in solar conditions, such as temperature, irradiance and the solar spectrum. The results will contribute to the development of Australian and international standards for predicting the performance of in-field PV solar systems.

The outcomes of this research will form the basis for more accurate revenue projections to industry and finance institutions, to encourage investment and widespread deployment of large-scale PV power stations.

The project will:

• construct and apply an outdoor testing facility at CSIRO’s National Solar Energy Centre in Newcastle, New South Wales, to study the performance of individual PV panels under real conditions;

• compare the responses of different technology types to variations in solar conditions, both in the lab at NREL and in the field at CSIRO; and

• compare the performance of the individual panels with the performance of small PV arrays at the Desert Knowledge Australia Solar Centre in Alice Springs, and large PV arrays currently in commercial operation.

Fact Sheet: Improving translation models for predicting the energy yield of photovoltaic (PV) power systems (PDF 287KB)