Photovoltaic systems. Module & inverter technologies, storage altenatives, and integration into the grid power

Fossil fuel energy conversion by conventional systems has become costly, depleted and not environmental-friendly. Clean energy production to supply the escalating demand of energy is one of the most challenging issue within the 21st century. Solar energy, has been developed to fulfill the demand by reducing the global environmental concerns, is the most abundant, inexhaustible and clean source compared to other renewable energy sources and fossil sources and could cover more than 50% of the world electricity demand in 2100. Solar radiation can be harvested in two ways for the electricity production which are direct conversion into the electric energy using photovoltaic panels (PV application) and the thermodynamic cycle (CSP application). Both cases have its own trade-offs with respect to economical, technological and environmental aspects. The PV market has been rapidly grown at annual rate 35-40% in the last decade. Cell efficiencies are catching the theoretically measured maximum values. Results show that the lower efficiencies bring limitations for their application and the whole system stability. Even that drawbacks, photovoltaic systems are continuously developing by R&D activities, meanwhile module prices are reducing and cell efficiencies are enhancing. IMEC[4], Belgian nanoelectronics research institute, announced that there has been achieved 22.02% conversion efficiency for a large area n-type PERT (passivated emitter, rear totally diffused) crystalline silicon solar cell on 6” commercially available n-type Cz-Si wafers. These type of researches will inevitably lead the further developments in manufacturing stage and provide cheaper PV installation prices. In this work, the developments of photovoltaic technologies from past to now and for the future expectations have been briefly introduced and studied according to the different usage of light absorbing materials such as mono-, polycrystalline silicon and thin film technologies and the other ongoing technologies, the development of inverter technologies, available storage alternatives for both stand-alone and grid-connected PV systems and economics, and technical, governmental and economical aspects of grid integrated PV installations concerning spread of PV in the Europe and World in terms of grid and market parity.