Multiphysics simulation of bifacial photovoltaic modules and software comparison.

• There is a big difference in solar PV production when simulated with different software such as PVsyst and COMSOL. • Changing the height of a bifacial solar installation does not make a big change in the production. • There is a large variation in solar production when simulating days with bad weather conditions with two different softwares. • With the same simulation method between softwares, PVSyst gives us a higher value for solar production in almost all cases. The solar energy industry is in constant evolution and the use of bifacials photovoltaic (PV) modules is one of the most recent innovations the industry adoptions. And even though bifacial technology has been present for as long as the monofacial technologies, bifacial solar modules have started to attract a lot of market attention; in fact, recent studies point out that the increasing interest for bifacial PV has aroused so much to predict a market share of 70% in 2030. The key feature that makes this possible is its design, which allows the module to capture sunlight from both sides of the panel increasing solar generation capacity by up to 25%, however this depends on factors such as: the irradiance factors, the module efficiency, the ground albedo, the tilt angle, the elevated height to the ground of the structure, the inter-row spacing and the array shading. Modeling and simulation of photovoltaic (PV) modules play an important role for technology development and evaluation of new designs and their interaction with the previously mentioned key factors. The project intends to analyze and comparing two irradiance numerical models. This comparison is made by simulating an identical bifacial PV solar installation (set-up) but using two different software with the capacity to carry out this type of analysis. Firstly, the study using PVsyst software, known for its widespread application in solar energy, and the other software was COMSOL Multiphysics, a Finite Element Method (FEM) based multiphysics simulation software to study and analyze optical and thermal performance of PV modules. For this comparative study, fixed irradiance conditions (during the year) were established, such as the equinoxes and solstices, to have different irradiance conditions and study their effect on the modeled bifacial modules. Finally, parametric studies of the following factors (design parameters) were carried out: ground albedo, tilt angle, inter-row spacing and height to the ground. In order to study the changes that these cause in the behavior of our system and also as a complement to this study and considering the great importance of the albedo for a bifacial installation, a field work has been carried out to measure it experimentally and validate the simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]