Optimizing performances of photovoltaics in Reunion Island-tilt angle

As in Reunion Island, France, around 61% of electricity is produced by using coal and fuel oil with high greenhouse emissions, it is beneficial to the environment to produce electricity from solar energy. Therefore, there is a large push to generate electricity from solar energy by use of photovoltaic (PV) arrays. However, it is important to have high efficiency of electricity generation, that is, to locate PV arrays in an optimal direction. The investigated PV systems may take 1, 2, 4, and 12 tilts per year. For the PV arrays facing the northsouth direction, this paper reports investigations of their optimum tilts and the maximum amounts of generated electricity. The investigated PV arrays are located in the towns of Saint-Benoit, Les Avirons, Piton Saint-Leu, and Petite-France in Reunion Island. To obtain optimal tilt of the PV arrays for electricity production from solar energy, EnergyPlus software and GenOpt software are used with HookeJeeves optimization routine. For the investigated PV arrays, the percentage gains in energy, exergy, avoided fossil energy, and the percentage decrease in CO2 emission are around 5% when compared with that of the PV array that takes only one optimum tilt per year. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.