Solar power plants designed in accordance with established design principles are influenced by snowdrift accumulation in Polar climates. A strategy to avoid snowdrifts in the plant is to adapt the design of the plant itself. To provide a background for the adaptation of solar power plants to Polar climates, the effect of performing parameter adjustments on the snow accumulation conditions as well as the plant yield should be quantified. This study uses Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) and energy yield simulations, validated with field measurements, to investigate the sensitivity of snowdrift accumulation and energy yield to solar power plant design parameters. The investigated parameters include the panel tilt, the row spacing, the gap-to-ground, the system scale and the azimuth/wind direction. Here it is shown that the investigated design parameters exhibit a large variation in sensitivity and that only two parameter adjustments which reduce the risk of snowdrift accumulation increase or have an insignificant impact on the energy yield, namely increasing the gap-to-ground and the system scale. Tilt, pitch and azimuth adjustments can reduce the risk of snowdrift accumulation but for a trade-off in energy yield. As the snowdrift accumulation conditions depend on the local snow and wind climate and PV system characteristics such as plant size, the design adjustments should be performed for the specific design scenario. This study provides a background for adjusting the design of the plant to the local climate to increase the snowdrift resilience while minimizing adverse effects on the system yield.
Frimannslund, I; Thiis, T; Ferreira, AD; Thorud, B
Impact of solar power plant design parameters on snowdrift accumulation and energy yield
Cold Regions Science And Technology