What causes the highest number of failure events in an operational PV plant?
Which sub-system leads to highest loss of energy in a plant?
These were the questions we asked in a survey of some of the top developers(Solairedirect) and EPCs(L&T, Tata Power Solar, Sterling & Wilson, etc) in the country,. Together, these companies manage more than 560 MW of solar PV plants in the country, and the answers they provided were quite interesting. The results of the survey were highlighted during the Intersolar India 2013, and I am sharing the presentation below. Please share your comments to me at madhavan@re-solve.in.
You can also see the presentation from RESolve’s sister company, REACH Solar, on the topic ” PV Plant Optimization – Learning from India’s 2 GW Installations” below. The presentation was made by Mr. Sebastian Duerr(LinkedIn profile), who is a Director of the company(View team profile here). A presentation on CUF vs PR can be accessed at the REACH Solar website here.
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1). You should have included another Chart in the status of O & M and the plant performance with Accelerated Depreciation beneficiaries and WITHOUT AD beneficiaries. Well, reach may send me this input to praveenkulkarni@kknesar.com for my assessment to know the state of INDIAN PV scenario to create good quality assets.
2). When we have so much of grid availability challenges, AC side and DC Side problems with Inverter despite a dedicated O and M agencies or teams, how RESIDENTIAL OR COMMERCIAL ROOF TOP will have better PR or CUF and you will notice that the Subsidy given by MNRE will be a National Waster due to GRID CONNECTION either through FiT or Net Metering for ROOF TOP SOLAR PLANTS apart from Back Current issues….. Did you do any study on O n M challenges for INDIAN ROOF TOP PROJECTS so far installed, certified by Channel partners based on whose report the MNRE has doled out the Subsidy with a high cost and poor efficiency Roof top Solar PV projects….. It is high time that both REACH and RESOLVE to highlight this issue including the PR and CUF experience in GERMANY for their ROOF TOP PV systems including shocks to the POLAND’s GRID !!
Dear Praveen,
Thanks for your comments.A few clarifications are given below.
1. We do not have the split between AD/non AD customers. We plan to include that in the next survey.
2. Regarding the failures, please note that the ” %” given in the charts about the grid availability, AC side and DC side problems represent the normalised number of times the respondents rated a particular attribute as the highest. If an attribtue(example, grid availability) has a score of 85%, it means that most of the respondents rated grid availability as the number one cause of failure/energy loss.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Madhavan
India is in an initial stage of solar development. Your efforts to popularise solar generation is appreciated. India should have started with rooftop plants as it is a ‘lowend tech work’. Germany did not start with MW size plants.
Now that Tamil Nadu has come out with a policy decision on grid connection you may watch the performance of grid connected rooftop solar plants. Please make it a point to publish it for others to learn.
Sivadasan
Dear Mr. Sivadasan,
Thank you very much for your appreciation, and your feedback motivates us to serve this sector even better.
We will keep publishing our experience for others to learn.
Thanks,
Madhavan
Dear Mr Madhavan
Your efforts to provide technical guidance for solar plant design on and operation and maintenance for optimizing generation of solar plant are appreciable
Mr Sivadasan has rightly said that we should have concentrated more on roof top applications. We optimize the requirement of distribution network, generate own power at rooftop and consume below the roof,no effect of storm or heavy winds or rains on power supply. Increase energy security and save enormous public funds and time for installing power plants by the government
Some times I wonder why the Government does not think of strongly enforce RPO and of make it compulsory for all major consumers to get some stipulated fraction of their energy requirement from solar or other renewable. Let solar industry be allowed to grow of its own. I am certain that it will grow much faster
German model of development can guide the policy makers
Government role may be focused on enforcement, providing easy loans to households, ensure easy process of net metering and engineering support. Farmers may be encouraged to install small grid connected solar plant on a portion of their land in order to increase their financial security and use power for mechanical farming
I think utility of MW class grid power generation away from load centers,leading to requirement of long EHV transmission line in terms per unit cost of transfer of power and reactive power management needs a proper study