Assessment of Environmental and Operational Impacts on Photovoltaic System Performance Degradation

Abstract

Photovoltaic (PV) system performance in real operating conditions is governed by the coupled effects of environmental variability, system design choices, and long-term operational and degradation mechanisms. Variations in solar irradiance intensity and spectral composition, driven by cloud dynamics, atmospheric conditions, and air mass, cause technology-dependent deviations from rated output and introduce spectral mismatch losses. Thermal behavior further constrains PV efficiency, as elevated ambient and cell temperatures reduce voltage, decrease conversion efficiency, and accelerate material aging, particularly in hot climates. These effects are compounded by soiling and surface contamination, where dust deposition, pollution, and organic residues reduce optical transmittance and energy yield in a strongly site-specific manner, necessitating adaptive cleaning schedules and advanced anti-soiling or self-cleaning solutions. In parallel, shading, orientation, and system configuration critically shape energy harvest under non-uniform conditions; partial and dynamic shading amplify mismatch losses and complicate power–voltage characteristics, while optimized tilt, azimuth, array layout, and module-level power electronics improve resilience and yield. Over the system lifetime, operational practices and degradation pathways, including inverter efficiency losses, grid interaction constraints, PID, delamination, and UV-induced aging, progressively affect reliability and lifetime energy production. Collectively, these findings emphasize the need for an integrated, systems-oriented framework that combines climate-aware design, shading-robust architectures, effective soiling mitigation, and data-driven monitoring and predictive maintenance to reduce performance uncertainty and maximize PV lifetime energy yield across diverse deployment contexts.