Experimental and Numerical Performance Assessment of East-West Bifacial Photovoltaic Floating System in Freshwater Basins

The evolving landscape of Floating Photovoltaic (FPV) systems is marked by ongoing advancements, particularly in the refinement of floating structures and the arrangement of photovoltaic modules. Furthermore, the increasing adoption of bifacial PV modules, attributed to their capacity for heightened production densities, underscores a notable trend within the field. Concurrently, the development of specialized software tools capable of simulating bifacial floating PV systems (BFPV) is progressively unfolding. This paper seeks to contribute to the field by conducting a comprehensive assessment of the experimental and numerical energy performance of a bifacial East-West Floating PV system (EW-BFPV) leveraging bifacial modules. The evaluation entails meticulous environmental and system measurements executed over a ten-month duration at the "Enel Innovation Lab" in Catania, Italy. Moreover, the study endeavors to validate numerical results generated by two specialized photovoltaic software tools, namely PVsyst and SAM, in which models of the EW-BFPV system have been implemented. Central to this validation is the examination of the Energy Performance Index (EPI) and the Baseline Energy Performance Index (BEPI). This assessment integrates both observed performances based on measured meteorological data and predicted performance to ensure a comprehensive evaluation. Significantly, the research includes specific analyses aimed at assessing the influence of varying irradiance inputs on the calculation of PV module temperatures within the simulation tools. Despite inherent disparities in modeling approaches between the software tools, our findings suggest that harmonizing loss percentages can yield comparable outcomes. This observation underscores the robustness of the proposed methodology and its potential for facilitating accurate assessments of FPV system performance, thus contributing to the advancement of this burgeoning technology.