impact of one and two axis solar tracking on techno economic viability of on grid pv systems case of burnoye 1 kazakhstan

• DOI: 10.5278/ijsepm.3665
• Publication Date: 2020-09-01
• Authors: Kassym Zhunis; Dinara Dikhanbayeva; Yeraly Kalel; Luis Rojas-Solórzano; Nurgeldy Praliyev
• Keywords: Social sciences (General); H1-99; 13. Climate action; 11. Sustainability; 0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering; 02 engineering and technology; TA1-2040; Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General); 7. Clean energy

Kazakhstan is currently committed to develop its renewable energy resources. In 2012, the government introduced a low-carbon energy strategy to reduce the production of air pollutants, including anthropogenic CO2e, and to increase the share of clean energy up to 50% of total consumption by 2050. As a contribution to this strategy, this paper presents a comparison in techno-economic performance of three scenarios. The differentiation will be between currently implemented fixed-slope on-grid PV power plants in Kazakhstan and proxy similar solar parks using one- or two-axis solar tracking systems. This paper aims to determine to what extent the more effective, but more expensive tracking systems might be a suitable standard in future PV power stations in the country. For this purpose, the existent fixed-slope 50 MWp Burnoye-1 commercial solar power plant located in Jambyl region, Kazakhstan, is used as a benchmark. As expected, solar panels with tracking systems produce more electricity year-round compared to those with fixed slopes. In comparison, one- and two-axis tracking systems led almost to the same amount of electricity export to the grid. Furthermore, despite the proxy PV power stations with one- and two-axis tracking technology could reduce around 10 ktCO2e emissions per year. This 25 to 29% and 33 to 33% ratio of extra-cost to extra-energy production, respectively, made both tracking scenarios not economically competitive compared to fixed panels. Nevertheless, if a tracking system has to be considered to further reduce GHG emissions and add extra annual electricity generation using current installed capacity of Burnoye-I, our results demonstrated that one-axis tracking should be preferred above two-axis system.<br/>International Journal of Sustainable Energy Planning and Management, Vol. 29 (2020)<br/>