PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF 8 KW GRIDTIED SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC POWER PLANT IN DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA

Results obtained from monitoring an outdoor experimental 8 kW distribution gridtied solar photovoltaic (SPV) system installed at Energy Technology Station known as KwaZulu-Natal Industrial Energy Efficient Training and Resource Centre (IEETRC) of Durban University of Technology, South Africa is presented in this study. The study was carried out to investigate and compare the system performance with similar installations in a few selected countries. Data were collected between January 2018 and December 2018 and computational analysis was completed with the aid of Simulink and MS-Excel. The evaluated monthly average daily and annual performance parameters of the SPV system – array yield, reference yield, final yield, system efficiency, inverter efficiency, capacity factor, and performance ratio – were discussed in term with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standard. A comparison of this study to other studies conducted in Dublin, Morocco, India, and Spain shows that this study final yield and performance ratio of 4.93 kWh/kWp/day and 87.1% is greater than what is reported in the extant literature.