Performance assessment of a photovoltaic module enhancer: insight into a new lifespan and cost effectiveness factor

The enhancement of photovoltaic modules (PVs) is a promising technology that is used for improving PV performance. A method was introduced in an earlier work that uses the power productivity and manufacturing cost of the PV enhancer to evaluate its cost effectiveness. Although, the existing method is useful in evaluating the performance of different types of PV enhancers, it is unable to execute the evaluation when the lifespan parameter of PV and its enhancer is considered in the analysis. This makes the evaluation become difficult. Hence, a new method is proposed, for the first time, for the purpose of making the performance comparison between the different types of PV enhancers more accurate. The definition and derivation are established for a new correlation that depends on seven important parameters which are the lifespan of both PV and its enhancer, the net power by adding an enhancer to PV, the output power from a PV without an enhancer and the maximum power at PV's standard test conditions, the cost of one watt of PV power and the manufacturing cost of the PV enhancer. The effects of each parameter on the new method are elaborated on different examples. The PV enhancer is classified based on the value of the new method. The new method is tested on a real-world case taken from a previous experimental work, to support its applicability. Results showed that the new method is applicable on real cases. It is concluded that the new technique is helpful in categorizing the different types of PV enhancer which may have a potential to be utilized by researchers, designers and/or manufacturers.