Space optimization of concentrator photovoltaic systems based on levelized cost of electricity in solar power plant

Inappropriate layout design of concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) systems in the solar field will incur optical losses due to mutual shadowing among adjacent CPV systems. This will deteriorate the energy generation of a solar power plant (SPP). The trivial solution is to increase the separating distance between adjacent CPV systems. Unfortunately, it causes ineffectiveness in land usage and will be reflected to an increase in land-related costs. Therefore, optimization of layout design is an important procedure to determine the best trade-off between land usage and energy generation. The levelized cost of electricity ( LCOE) of the SPP must be competitive to attract the interest of investors venturing into the solar energy business. A new computational algorithm has been proposed to optimized the field layout system of the CPV system by using the local weather data with the consideration of the shadowing effect. In this paper, a case study has been conducted in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia to evaluate the performance of CPV systems in the SPP with different D/L ratios. The simulated results show that the optimized field layout for the CPV systems is at D/L ratio of 2.25, which accommodate the lowest value of LCOE.