Drawbacks of Solar Photo Voltaic Systems
- Conversion efficiencies of solar cells are very low and is of the order of only 30% only.
- To cater for the low intensity of solar radiation, large area is needed to generate sufficient power.
- Solar cell materials are very costly. Due to this, cost of Solar Photo Voltaic Systems is very high. Thus, these are not economically competitive with other solar energy conversion devices.
- Solar energy is intermittent. It varies with place and time of the day and day of the year. Hence to cater for this there is a requirement for large storage system for use during non sunlight hours. This adds to the cost and bulk of the system.