Technoeconomic Analysis of Novel PV Plant Designs for Extreme Cost Reductions

Technical Report · Tue Sep 28 04:00:00 EDT 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1821810· OSTI ID:1821810

Bedilion, Robin ^[1]; Pilot, Nicholas ^[2]

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1. Electric Power Research Institute, Inc. (EPRI). Palo Alto, CA (United States); Electric Power Research Institute, Inc. (EPRI)
2. Electric Power Research Institute, Inc. (EPRI). Palo Alto, CA (United States)

This project sought to gain a deeper understanding of the cost and performance of future solar photovoltaic (PV) plant components, including bifacial PV modules, tandem PV modules, increased plant voltage architectures, and module-level power electronics, and how they may be integrated into new PV plant designs to significantly reduce the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) of PV. This was done through extensive modeling of current PV plants and future technologies in three different locations, informed by a comprehensive literature review and informational interviews to develop performance and cost assumptions for these technologies. Sensitivities were conducted to understand tradeoffs between different design options, such as the added energy from increasing row spacing versus additional land costs. An optimization tool was then created utilizing an evolutionary algorithm to determine an optimal PV plant configuration for a given set of technologies that resulted in minimized plant LCOE based upon typical performance and cost inputs.

• Research Organization: Electric Power Research Institute, Inc. (EPRI). Palo Alto, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
• DOE Contract Number: EE0008981
• OSTI ID: 1821810
• Report Number(s): 8981-FTR-EPRI
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
bifacial modules
increased plant voltage architecture
levelized cost of electricity
module-level power electronics
optimization
photovoltaic
tandem modules
techno-economic analysis