Simulating the energy yield of bifacial photovoltaic modules installed on carports or canopies

The installation of solar photovoltaic (PV) modules on carports or canopies is a relatively popular application of PV power generation. This advantageously combines power generation and shaded parking for vehicles in the case of carports, or power generation and shelter and shade for people, animals or goods with little waste of land. In parallel, bifacial technology has experienced a swift increase in its share of the PV market in recent years, which opens the door to various improvements and even new kinds of solutions. However, in current state-of-the-art PV simulation tools, the added complexity introduced by bifacial technology and by the complex geometry of PV installations on carports or canopies is still not fully covered and the evaluation of the bifacial energy gain (BEG) is not always accurate. In this work, a novel simulation tool is introduced, which benefits from the latest 3D evaluation libraries incorporated into the Graphic Processor Unit (GPU) of modern computers, as developed for the video game industry. This novel approach provides an evaluation of the BEG with a spatial resolution that is similar to what is achievable with backward ray-tracing techniques but within a tiny fraction of the required simulation time. With this, it is possible to simulate the energy yield of the PV plant accurately and in detail, such as for commercial projects