TY  - JOUR
AU  - Ballina, Jazael
AU  - Go, Yun Ii
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/01/02
TI  - Quantification and Comparative Analysis of Environmental Factors to Large-Scale Solar Plant’s Energy Performance via Regression and Linear Correlation Models
JO  - Journal of Energy and Power Technology
SP  - 001
VL  - 07
IS  - 01
AB  - Performance degradation, including system deterioration, corrosion, and energy loss in solar PV systems, can be caused by environmental conditions such as high humidity, frequent rainfall, and temperature swings in tropical nations. Over the years, photovoltaic energy has been successfully developed to have low production costs and high efficiency. It has been the main reason that solar energy is one of the fastest-growing renewable energies in the world, with a generation of 821 TWh of electricity since 2021, representing 23% incremental from the previous record. Even though photovoltaic technology is the preferred renewable energy due to the abundant availability of solar energy, one of its challenges is the significant reduction in the performance, power output, and efficiency caused by its installation directly into the open atmosphere and to the environmental phenomena translating into potentially avoidable economic losses. Various factors related to energy degradation are related to ambient temperature, dust particles, water droplets, shading, wind speed, humidity, and other climate parameters, particularly in tropical climate conditions. It quantifies the relationship of the least and most significant measurements using various techniques. These include computation of correlation coefficients, linear regression methods, and statistical evaluations. This study applies statistical methods such as the Pearson, Kendall, and Spearman correlation coefficients, ARIMA forecasting models, and regression analysis to assess how tropical environmental factors affect solar energy yield. Historical energy data from a large-scale solar plant located in Malaysia is adopted. The selected performance parameters are energy yield and plane of irradiance energy generated by the photovoltaic panels. The results found that humidity and temperature impact PV system performance the most. This work is significant, especially in countries with tropical climates. It provides a reference model with similar weather and energy data that plans to implement large-scale solar power projects as a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). Based on the research’s findings, mitigating strategies like regular panel cleaning, enhanced monitoring systems, and predictive maintenance plans are recommended to reduce the effects of these climate-induced losses. This work aligns with UN-SDG on clean energy and contributes towards the national net-zero target in meeting the global energy challenge 2030. The beneficiaries include the National Energy Commission, regulators, urban planners, solar plant owners’ national utility providers, etc. This paper contributes to improving the operational effectiveness of solar PV systems in tropical countries, supporting Malaysia’s efforts to attain its energy transition goals.
SN  - 2690-1692
UR  - https://doi.org/10.21926/jept.2501001
DO  - 10.21926/jept.2501001
ID  - Ballina2025
ER  -