Designing photovoltaic plants for extreme ambient conditions

The paper describes the design process of a photovoltaic (PV) plant to be installed in extreme ambient conditions. In particular, a PV plant has been conceived for the very challenging conditions of the French-Italian Antarctic Base, located in the South Pole. Concordia Base has been built with the collaboration of Italian consortium PRNA, French Polar Institute IPEV and European Space Agency ESA. It is one of the three bases not located on the coast and is open all the year. The electrical load of the base, presently supplied by three diesel generators, has been previously characterized measuring the relevant quantities during a period of one year. During the same year an experimental campaign has been conducted to collect the necessary solar radiation data of the site. A model of the PV panels has been set up and validated to be used for the simulation of the plant behaviour. Finally, the possible contribution of the solar energy to the Concordia Antarctic Base supply has been calculated. © 2010 IEEE.