Bifacial photovoltaic technology can generate additional energy by utilizing sunlight from both the front and rear surfaces. However, their real-world performance under tropical rooftop conditions is not widely reported. In this study, a grid-connected 11 kW photovoltaic system installed in Mumbai, India, was monitored over one year to compare bifacial and monofacial modules under identical conditions. Performance was evaluated using IEC 61724–1 metrics such as energy yield, final yield, performance ratio (PR), and temperature-corrected PR. The rooftop consisted of a white-cement surface with an average albedo of 0.38 ± 0.03. The experimental results show that the bifacial system achieves average energy gain of 9%–15% compared to the monofacial system. The experimental results show good agreement with simulation trends, with deviations primarily due to temperature, inverter and mismatch losses. The bifacial system achieves a 6%–7% lower levelized cost of energy despite a slightly higher initial cost, demonstrating its technical and economic advantage for tropical rooftop applications without the need for artificial reflectors.
Dake et al. (Fri,) studied this question.