ABSTRACT
Thailand has a fairly high solar radiation potential due to its location in the equatorial region, with a yearly average daily global solar radiation in the range of 18-19 MJ/m2/day (Janjai 2010). However, Thailand’s tropical climate, with high ambient temperatures and high relative humidity can affect the conversion of sunlight energy to electricity in PV systems. The environmental factors examined in this study are high temperature and high humidity, which are well known to affect the efficiency and output power of a PV system (Snaari et al. 2005, The German Solar Energy Society 2005). Different PV technologies behave differently, due to their material properties, including Temperature Coefficient (TC). Therefore, in this work, the performance of six PV technologies was compared in the tropical climate conditions in Thailand.
