Guide to understanding solar production losses
Aurora Solar, a leading solar design and performance software provider, released a guide for understanding the leading causes of energy loss in PV systems, and how to avoid them.
In the final installment of Aurora's PV System Losses Series we explain specific causes of energy production loss in solar PV systems — and explore solar panel angle efficiency losses, as well as losses from tilt and orientation, incident angle modifier, environmental conditions, and inverter clipping.
We can divide the losses of a PV solar into three main categories: Front-face and back-face losses reflect the issues related to the ability of panels to capture sunlight. However, the electrical losses depict the power conversion problems.
Important: The breakdown of losses shows absolute loss values (non-cumulative). This table details monthly energy losses throughout the PV system, starting from the initial solar input and tracking reductions at each stage:
From module mismatch and soiling to temperature fluctuations and energy conversion inefficiencies, each component in the system can potentially lead to a loss of solar output. Identifying the causes of these PV losses is essential for optimizing the system's design and increasing the efficiency of your solar panels.
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