Plant Performance

Rarely does the planning and design phase of solar farms consider the subsequent operational management and its costs. Jörn Carstensen, managing partner at greentech, explores how unforeseen effects from development, procurement and construction can have a significant impact on the economic viability of PV plants.

Using an in-house tool and PVsyst simulation software, a team from Chint New Energy Technology Co. analyse the LCOE of utility-scale solar systems in various countries based on three technologies: PERC, TOPCon and HJT.

With accurate power forecasting becoming more essential than ever for solar asset owners, Yoojin Lee, a systems engineer and power forecast specialist at Enerparc, reveals how the company’s artificial intelligence approaches are used to make day-ahead forecasts more accurate.

With numerous markets reporting problems with overly optimistic P50 estimates, attention has also been drawn to similar issues with PAN files. TÜV Rheinland’s Yating Zhang and Christos Monokroussos discuss the subject at length.

With PV cleaning robots posing significant advantages for solar O&M, Ben Figgis of the Qatar Environment & Energy Research Institute of Hamad bin Khalifa University, explores recent developments of standards in the field.

With solar operations and maintenance experiencing significant price pressure, adequate fault detection that occurs as quickly as possible has become increasingly important for asset operators. Here, 3E’s Julien Deckx explores early fault detection strategies for solar PV plants.

Last year analysis by renewables performance aggregator and insurance provider kWh Analytics highlighted the extent of solar asset underperformance against P50 estimates in the US. Here, the company’s Sarath Srinivasan details some of the reasons behind that underperformance.

As operational solar assets mature, news of repowering projects is steadily ramping up. Alice Grundy takes a look at what’s influencing decisions and just when the right time to repower is.

As solar finds itself deployed in more exotic climes, it is also having to operate in increasingly harsher environments. Ulrike Jahn of VDE Renewables and Dr. Bert Herteleer of KU Leuven assess how such climates affect PV performance and what must be taken into consideration when formulating O&M strategies.

The 2021 edition of PV Evolutions Labs’ Module Scorecard saw a record number of module manufacturers recognised, but equally highlighted a growing incidence of module failure rates. Liam Stoker unpicks some of the key trends from this year’s edition of the scorecard.