This study investigates the performance of a 500 W glass–glass bifacial TOPCon photovoltaic module installed at LNCT Bhopal under semi-arid climatic conditions. The system was equipped with high-resolution front and rear pyranometers, albedo sensors, temperature sensors, and electrical monitoring instruments to accurately evaluate effective irradiance, bifacial gain, and energy yield. The results show that rear-side irradiance contributes approximately 8–18% of the front irradiance, resulting in an effective irradiance enhancement of about 7–18%, depending on environmental conditions and mounting configuration. The measured daily energy yield ranges from 2.0 to 3.8 kWh, while the performance ratio varies between 0.72 and 0.81, indicating stable operation under varying outdoor conditions. Since bifacial gain is strongly influenced by installation geometry, the effect of mounting height was analysed. The bifacial gain increased from 9% at a mounting height of 0.5 m to 12.5% at 1.0 m and further to 16.5% at 1.5 m due to improved rear-side irradiance collection. Furthermore, strong agreement between measured and simulated results was observed, validated using RMSE, correlation coefficient, ANOVA, and regression analysis (RMSE ≈ 9.9 W, R ≈ 0.98, p > 0.85). Overall, the findings demonstrate the performance advantages of bifacial PV systems and provide a reliable framework for accurate energy prediction and optimized rooftop PV design.
Shukla et al. (Sun,) studied this question.