Renewable Energy, Vol.114, 1238-1246, 2017
Land utilization performance of ground mounted photovoltaic power plants: A case study
Long term studies were conducted on land utilization performances of six (three 25 MWp and three 5 MWp) ground mounted photovoltaic power plants are operating in salt marshy land in western India. The PV modules in the present studies are made up with multi-crystalline silicon (mc-Si), amorphous silicon (a-Si) and cadmium telluride (CdTe) and these are the parts of a 500 MWp solar park. Studies indicated that the salty marsh land surfaces under the shadow of the PV modules were changed by enhancing its humidity and temperature level. This enhancement improved the flora formation in the humid soil possibly due to the flow of leakage current from PV module surface and land is used for agricultural activities. The combination of electrical and agricultural products reduced payback period of total investment and this makes the dual use of land in developing energy and food security. Results showed that the small capacity of me-Si PV plant has the better electrical yield than that of its larger counterpart and the agricultural yield under a-Si and CdTe plants is better than mc-Si plants. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.