Experimental investigation of 4E performance studies of a vertical bifacial solar module during summer and winter

The proposed research work presents the performance analysis of the vertically mounted bifacial module (VBFM) with and without tracking during the summer and winter seasons. Also, various parameters like energy efficiency, electrical efficiency, electrical exergy, thermal exergy, exergy efficiency, environmental analysis, economic analysis, exergoeconomic analysis, enviroeconomic analysis, and exergoenviroeconomic analysis of the VBFM were studied and presented. The comparative analysis was carried out between two bifacial solar modules installed in two different orientations (east-west and south-north). The experiments were conducted in the real climatic condition of Minjur, Tamil Nadu, India. Under the summer and winter climatic conditions, when the lifetime period of 10, 15, and 20 years are considered higher energy production factor and higher life cycle conversion efficiency was obtained from the vertically mounted bifacial module-east-west (VBFM-EW) with tracking during summer and vertically mounted bifacial module-north-south (VBFM-SN) module without tracking during the winter season. Exergetic cost was calculated by considering 15, 20, 25, and 30 years of the system with 2%, 5%, and 10% interest rates. The maximum exergetic cost was obtained from 30 years of the system under a 2% interest rate. The enviroeconomic and exergoenviroeconomic analysis provides the carbon credits earned from the E-W module was a maximum of Rs 11,036.18 during the summer season and Rs 12,413.48 from the VBFM-SN module during the winter season, considering the life of the system as 15 years.