Capacity Factor Of Solar Panels

Capacity factors are a comparison of net generation with available capacity.

Capacity factor of solar panels.

Energy information administration form eia 860 annual electric generator report and. One of the key reasons for this low ratio is the nature of renewable power. 4 200 000 mw h 365 days 24 hours day 2 080 mw 0 23 23. The capacity factor is a general term for all power generating systems and refers to the difference between what the system can achieve at continuous 100 output the power rating versus what it actually achieves under normal less than 100 operating conditions.

See the technical note for an explanation of how capacity factors are calculated. If this value were estimated using dc capacity the dc capacity factor would be about 22. Generally it is in the range of 10 25. Taking the average figure for annual generation gives a capacity factor of.

The capacity factor for solar panels varies between 15 and 40. Displaystyle frac 4 200 000 mbox mw h 365 mbox days times 24 mbox hours day times 2 080 mbox mw 0 23 23. In practical terms a solar panel system with a total rated capacity of 5kw kilowatts could be made up of either 20 250 watt panels or 16 300 watt panels. Consequently the capacity factor of the solar energy system here is much lower than that of phoenix at about 16.

Recently however the us energy information agency published a table showing an average capacity factor of around 28 for utility sized pv plants in the us in 2015. While this is true there are a variety of other real world factors that determine how much energy your system will produce throughout the year. As we have seen the capacity factor varies quite a bit for solar photovoltaic systems depending on the location. Similarly the average capital costs for utility scale solar pv facilities installed in 2015 were 2 91 per watt in terms of ac capacity and about 2 33 per watt in terms of the dc capacity of the pv modules.

In the real world most solar panels tend to have efficiencies in the 16 19 range though some manufacturers like mission and sunpower have higher end panels that have efficiencies exceeding 20. A post i wrote a little over two years ago concluded that solar pv capacity factors in the us ranged between 13 and 19 with an average of around 16. Power ratings efficiency ratings and degradation rates are just a few of the qualifications that set solar panels apart from one another.