A practical field study of various solar cells on their performance in Malaysia Nowshad Amin a, * , Chin Wen Lung b , Kamaruzzaman Sopian b a Dept. of Electrical Electronic and System Engineering, National University of Malaysia, 43600 Bangi Selangor, Malaysia b Solar Energy Research Institute, National University of Malaysia, 43600 Bangi Selangor, Malaysia article info Article history: Available online 3 January 2009 Keywords: PV performance Silicon solar cell CIS solar cell Field test abstract A practical field study has been carried out with the intention to analyze and compare the performance of various types of commercially available solar panels under Malaysia’s weather. Four different types of solar panels, such as mono-crystalline silicon, multi-crystalline silicon, amorphous silicon and copper– indium–diselenide (CIS) solar panels are used for the practical field study. A number of performance related parameters have been collected using data logger over a period of three consecutive days in the hope that this would give some initial information on the real performance of different solar panels. Results show that mono-crystalline silicon and multi-crystalline silicon solar module perform better when they are under hot sun, whereas the CIS and triple junction amorphous silicon solar panel perform better when it is cloudy and has diffused sunshine. Furthermore, the efficiency of crystalline silicon solar panel has been found to drop when the temperature rises higher. This phenomenon does not appear in the CIS and amorphous silicon solar panels, which shows that the performance of CIS and amorphous silicon solar cells are better in terms of power conversion efficiency and overall performance ratio. Better performance of thin film solar cells like amorphous silicon and CIS are observed from the initial results, which draws attention over the selection of solar panels and also may encourage the usage of these in tropical weather like Malaysia. Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The earth receives about 1000 pW of energy from the sun every year. This amount is enough to cover the Earth’s energy demand for over 1000 times. Capturing sunlight and turning them into elec- tricity for daily usage is a very good idea, however the technologies have its own limitations and problems which must be solved before they could be implemented in large scale. Since the development of early PV cells, the very first photovoltaic system has been applied in Malaysia in early 1980s. The applications of photovoltaic were mainly concentrated on stand-alone systems, especially for rural electrification program. The first pilot system was installed and commissioned in 1998 by Malaysia’s National Power Company (known as Tenaga Nasional Berhad @ TNB) as a pilot project to determine whether PV is suitable to be used in Malaysia. Up to date, PV has gained a strong support to be implemented by the government but support is less from the private sectors and users. This is due to the high capital cost to install the system and long payback time from the photovoltaic system. The main objective of the study is to demonstrate the real performance of commercially available solar cells with some information in their differences in power production under Malaysia’s real weather condition. It is well known that the effi- ciency and output power of the solar cells change with temperature and solar irradiance level [1–3]. From the acquired data on the variation of performance among the solar cells, a recommendation can be made on the usage of photovoltaic applications in Malaysia and that can serve as guidance for future users who will be inter- ested to use it as an alternative energy source. 2. Methodology: parameter acquisition In order to calculate and understand the performance of a photovoltaic module, a few parameters which can be obtained from the data logger is needed. These related parameters are categorized into module parameter and environmental parameters. 2.1. Module parameters There are four important parameters which must be noted in order to calculate the quality of the photovoltaic module. This includes the maximum voltage, V max , maximum current, I max , short-circuit current, I sc , and open circuit voltage, V oc . * Corresponding author. E-mail address: nowshad@eng.ukm.my (N. Amin). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Renewable Energy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene 0960-1481/$ – see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.renene.2008.12.005 Renewable Energy 34 (2009) 1939–1946