SUITLAND FEDERAL CENTER'S 100 KW AMORPHOUS PV INSTALLATION: THIN FILM TECHNOLOGY IN A UTILITY-SCALE APPLICATION

摘要

Thin film photovoltaic modules have long held out the hope of a lower cost per Watt. As new thin film products come to the PV module marketplace, this hope is becoming a reality. The challenge that these products present and the obstacle to their widespread adoption in large, utility-scale applications, is their relatively low efficiency, or low power density, when compared with crystalline technology, and their resultant higher cost of installation. Low power density results in a greater number of electrical connections, a greater mass of panelized product, and a larger number of balance of system components for every peak Watt installed. Appropriate design and installation approaches, together with manufacturing advances, offer solutions for these issues. Using the recently completed Suitland Federal Center 100 kW amorphous silicon thin film array as an example, we will identify approaches that worked well in this installation and ideas that may be applied to any large-scale installation that can lead to lower construction costs.