Lightsource BP, which is one of Europe’s largest solar developers, announced recently that they will begin exclusively using bifacial solar modules.
They originally installed a bifacial system for testing in Northern Ireland in 2018. The real-world data they’ve collected from the site makes this an easy decision for the company.
Bifacial solar modules increase energy yield by generating power from both the front and back sides of the solar panels. Bifacial panels provide higher economic returns and have a lower Levelized cost of energy. Many advanced commercial solar cells are inherently bifacial, which means that the electricity generation on the backside comes at a very low additional cost, without much additional assembly required.
According to an editorial from Wood Mackenzie, the market is expected to grow tenfold by 2024. In 2019 the number of megawatts doubled from 2,600 to more than 5,400 megawatts. They also reported cost difference in production between bifacial and traditional mono-facial modules is now as low as half a cent.
Using their real-world data from the Northern Ireland test site has Lightsource BP convinced this is what they will implement moving forward. The technical director at Lightsource BP, Chris Buckland, explains:
“Within the U.K., we will be very disappointed if we see less than 8 percent of uplift, provided that the rest of the system has been engineered appropriately. We are seeing up to 12 percent additional yield coming out, particularly in less sunny regions such as Northern Ireland.
In Europe, 8 to 12 percent, depending on where you are, is certainly something that we feel very confident in, and our investors are on board with that today.
We’ve had to show this [extra] reach to our investors and selected technology advisers to get buy-in for the technology, but now there is no debate.”
Buckland said; in the back half of 2019, for every one of the company’s sites, including the U.S., Australia, and their latest project in Spain, they’ve installed bifacial technologies.
Lightsource BP’s data and past studies show that bifacial can increase efficiency by 12%, and with solar tracking systems installed, including DIY solar trackers, that number could go as high as 27%.
More companies are expected to start using bifacial due to these studies having such good results. Another UK-based company, Solarcentury has begun using some bifacial panels at different sites and plans on implementing their first full-scale bifacial project this year.
Both Lightsource BP and Solarcentury are using double glass modules; given their lower degradation rates, they currently see them as lower-risk options.
Up until this point, Lightsource BP has been using fixed bifacial panels for their sites, but at the newly built 250-megawatt site in Spain, they will be using trackers to see just how much more energy can be created using bifacial and trackers together.
