Impact of Wave-Induced Motion on the Energy Yield Differences Between Offshore Bifacial and Monofacial Photovoltaic Arrays

Although offshore photovoltaic (PV) systems have attracted increasing interest as a solution to land-use limitations, the influence of offshore-specific dynamic environmental conditions on PV performance remains insufficiently understood. Existing studies have primarily focused on static operating conditions or general energy yield comparisons between bifacial and monofacial PV technologies, while the combined effects of wave-induced motion, module tilt-angle, and sea-surface albedo on offshore PV performance have received limited attention. To address this gap, this study develops a parametric simulation framework to investigate the sensitivity of offshore bifacial photovoltaic (biPV) and monofacial photovoltaic (moPV) arrays to key offshore environmental and operational parameters. Given the scarcity of long-term operational data for offshore PV installations, a hypothetical offshore plant located in the Yellow Sea, China, is considered using real meteorological inputs. In this study, 16 kWp offshore biPV and moPV arrays are modeled and compared in terms of their performance through three case studies examining wave motions, tilt-angle variations, and surface albedo effects. Performance metrics such as maximum irradiance, total energy yield, energy yield losses, wave-induced power loss, and bifacial gain (BG) are analyzed and compared. The findings indicate that increasing wave motion diminishes the total energy yield due to higher tilt-angle fluctuations. Nevertheless, the biPV array regularly outperforms the moPV array because of the effect of the rear-side irradiance. The tilt angle analysis reveals a trade-off between energy yield and BG, with BG increasing from 0.05% to over 10% as the tilt angle increases from 10° to 45°. Higher surface albedo further enhances bifacial performance, increasing BG from 4.5% to 17.8% for albedo values of 0.05 and 0.25, respectively.