Large solar farms: sixteen sites, three continents
How much more a bifacial solar farm's rear face collects when the ground under the rows is treated, at sixteen sites from the desert to the coast. Seven are in Australia, seven in India, and two are arid sites further west. Each site runs on its own public typical year of measured weather. This is Namindo's own work and stands on its own.
Pick a site
Rear-side gain (rear-face energy as a share of front-face energy)
Gains are before temperature, soiling, mismatch and inverter clipping, so gains at the meter are smaller. After clipping at the DC to AC ratios used on Australian farms, the energy gain at the meter is in the order of 5 to 7 per cent.
The gain holds from the desert to the coast
All sixteen sites against the share of their sunshine that is diffuse. Treated ground returns direct and diffuse light alike, so its gain changes little between a clear desert and a cloudy south coast. That is why one treatment family can serve farms across a continent.
Show the numbers
About these numbers
These are Namindo model results, not measurements. How Namindo runs the model and how the gain is achieved are proprietary and not shown here. "Treated ground" means ground brought to the reflectance Namindo's treatments are designed to reach; "bare ground" means ordinary farm ground.
Weather: seven Australian typical years derived from Bureau of Meteorology one-minute data by the method of Ernst and Gooday (2019), Solar Energy 189, 299 to 306; the Bureau does not endorse the derivative. Seven Indian typical years from ISHRAE EnergyPlus weather files. One coastal Saharan year from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. One arid-site year built by Namindo from measured site data.