Examination of Web-Based PVGIS and SUNNY Design Web Photovoltaic System Simulation Programs and Assessment of Reliability of the Results

Due to the polluting effect of fossil fuels on environment and their exhaustible nature, investments in renewable energy resources continue to increase. In order to benefit from solar energy which is one of these energy resources, 50 GW of new power plants were installed only in 2015. Following the "regulation on unlicensed electricity generation" issued to benefit from the renewable energy potential available in Turkey, the installation of systems that generate electricity from solar energy via photovoltaic power is rapidly increasing. The use of simulation software is very important in the design and analysis of photovoltaic solar power plants. In this way, it is possible to obtain production data and conduct investment analyses before the power plant is established. Some of the simulation programs are web-based. In this study, web-based solar energy simulation programs PVGIS and Sunny Design Web were investigated and the proximity of simulation results to the actual results was studied. Dicle University Solar Power Plant was selected as the study field in order to compare the simulation results of the software. Dicle University Solar Power Plant is a photovoltaic solar power plant established and operated within the Engineering Faculty of Dicle University for introduction, education, production and analysis purposes. In the study, simulation of the 250 kWp solar power plant established in Dicle University was performed with PVGIS and Sunny Design Web software by using installation parameters and thus, one-year production values were obtained. The results of both web-based programs are compared with each other and with the actual production values from the plant.

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