Edinburgh Napier University

  To meet the increase in peak electricity demand and to reduce fossil fuel emissions in Oman and as an initiative taken by the government, by 2030, 15% (3000 MW) of the total energy mix (20,000 MW) should be generated from renewable energy resources like Solar and wind etc. It is crucial for the stakeholders and PV enthusiast to predict the return on investments and its performance in the local climatic conditions. In this paper, a case study has been presented where PV modules of different technologies, age and installed in different climatic conditions of Oman are studied. The results showed that the output power degradation for all modules is around 1.96%/year which is almost double compare to the European countries. Electrical analysis of different PV technologies showed that multi-crystalline silicon technology installed in hot and dry climate is degrading (around 2.54%/year) faster, while thin-film technology (CdTe) has shown lowest degradation (average of 0.8%/year) compare to any other PV technology. Furthermore, IR image analysis showed that presence of hot cells in PV modules are also a significant contributing factor in PV degradation rates. Severity of interconnect breakage (SIB) tests confirms the increase of the series-resistance of PV modules which is also a significant contributing factor for reduction in short-circuit current and thus PV maximum output power.