Large PV Power Plants Research Articles

RCPI controller-based multilevel multistring grid following inverter for large rooftop PV power plant application

RCPI controller-based multilevel multistring grid following inverter for large rooftop PV power plant application

Analysis energy production design from grid connected 40 MW large PV power plant

Electricity is an important source of energy in everyday life. In recent decades, growing energy demand worldwide has significantly fueled energy production, leading to environmental impacts such as global warming and ozone depletion. it has also endangered the species. Hence, the whole world has started shifting towards green energy generation, eliminating all the negative impacts on the environment. Solar energy is the most CO2 emission save compared to non-renewable energy sources. A photovoltaic generator is useful in areas well exposed to the sun. This paper is aimed the total amount of energy generated by the solar system connected to the grid on the 230 kV transmission line. This result was conducted by comparing the energy generated with tilt angle of 15°,20°,25°,30°and 35°. The most energy generated is produced with 25° of tilt angle according to the simulation result in this paper. The result was simulated by using PVsyst. This paper presents energy production of a 40-MW grid connected photovoltaic system located at Minbu Township in Myanmar. The simulation is carried out in order to get maximum energy production and the incident radiation, performance ratio, energy into the grid and energy output at array and losses. Based on the simulation result, it is concluded that maximum energy production and performance ratio are 75730 MWh and 81% through the year. The CO2 emission was saved 424781.5 tons per year. The incident energy in collector plane is 5.220kWh/m2/day. This research is only conducted for analysis on existing grid connected utility scale solar PV system and not provided for advanced techniques.

Spatial and Temporal Solar Potential Variation Analysis in Uganda Using Measured Data

The paper presents an analysis of spatial and temporal solar potential variations in Uganda. The solar radiation potential distribution was investigated based on measured data from 56 ground meteorological stations across Uganda from January 2015 to February 2022. The data were recorded after every 5-minute interval. The monthly average daily Global Horizontal Irradiance (GHI) was analysed using the spatial inverse distance weighting (IDW) interpolation technique in ArcGIS 10.7.1. The GHI distribution was found to have maxima at equinox and minimum between June and July. The average global horizontal irradiation is found to be 1680 KWh per year, with a daily variability below 10%. This is above the threshold for solar energy applications and with such low variability, large scale solar PV plants can be installed with minimum backup requirements. Northern Uganda receives the highest average daily global horizontal irradiation of 5.38 Whm–2 day–1, while Western Uganda receives 4.16 Whm–2 day–1, the lowest. The average AM/PM ratio depicted a value above 2 for all regions in Uganda and therefore, optimal solar energy exploitation for fixed systems favours eastern orientation. The central, eastern and northern Uganda which is 69.3% of the country has relief favourable for large scale solar PV power plants and CSP facilities.
 Keywords: GHI, IDW, Global solar radiation, Solar insolation, PV power plants, Uganda

Fault diagnosis of PID in crystalline silicon photovoltaic modules through I-V curve

Potentially induced degradation (PID) faults in crystalline silicon photovoltaic modules are a well-known problem. Traditional detection methods are time-consuming and expensive. In order to quickly detect the PID PV modules online, we investigate and collect the PID PV modules in several large PV power plants. The I-V characteristics of the PID modules are tested. The test results show that the open circuit voltage of PID modules has a significantly decline than that of the normal modules. In addition, the open circuit voltage has a large difference under high and low irradiance, and the reason of this feature is analyzed. A method for online diagnosis of PV module PID faults through I-V curve is proposed, and it has been verified that the method is effective for PID faults.

Design and development of wireless networking for solar PV panel cleaning robots

This paper discusses about one of the possible solutions to overcome the influence of dust on the surface of solar PV panel. A decrease in power output with the increase in particle deposition has been identified in large scale solar PV power generation where there were many numbers of solar panels connected in the form of arrays and each array requires a robot to carry out efficient cleaning with in stipulated time. Autonomous automatic cleaning operation along with self-control and monitoring of accumulated dust with proper coordination through networking between robots is prerequisite option to attain efficient cleaning system in large scale solar power plants. To accomplish the same, selection of appropriate communication technology for real time wireless networking of solar cleaning robots with low power consumption and data delay to operate over wide area is required. Here an attempt had been made to bring in an automated robot cleaning system using low power wide area network (LPWAN) based on a network of ESP 8266 Node MCU’s associated with a set of sensors under different configurations which showed successful results for implementation in industrial scale large solar PV power plants.

FAULT INSPECTION BY AERIAL INFRARED THERMOGRAPHY IN A PV PLANT AFTER A METEOROLOGICAL TSUNAMI

Infrared thermography (IRT) has been applied as an effective tool for detecting faults in PV modules. In addition, with the recent development of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), they have been used in order to increase the cost-effectiveness and employ IRT for large-scale PV plants or roof-mounted PV systems. With the goal of demonstrating the capabilities of the UAV application, especially in aerial thermography analysis, this article presents an experiment applying UAV based IRT, performed for the fault inspection of a PV plant in South Brazil. The local is a 3 MWp PV plant located in the city of Tubarão in the state of Santa Catharina and consists of three 1 MWp-blocks of different PV technologies. On October of 2016, the plant was affected by a meteorological tsunami, causing several damages. The experiment was focused on the detection of the damages on the polycrystalline PV block of the power plant and a DJI Phantom 3 Advanced was equipped with a lightweight infrared camera to perform the aerial IRT. The measurements in the plant were performed in accordance with the international norm IEC TS 62446-3, under stable radiation and weather conditions, exclusively with irradiances above 800 W/m2 and average wind speeds of 3 m/s. The IRT drone system was essential for identifying damaged and defect portions of the PV power plant fast after the incident. It was possible to detect hot spots, defective bypass-diodes, short- and open-circuited strings. The damages could be noticed even when the UAV flight was at 40 m of altitude. The UAV based IRT assessment helped to identify the defects in a fast manner, without interrupting the power generation. It can be concluded that the technique is very effective, practical and relevant for damage inspection in large PV power plants.

Extended model for irradiation suitable for large bifacial PV power plants

This paper presents a model for the calculation of irradiation for large bifacial PV power plants. The represented model, convenient for hourly meteorological data, enables calculations of typical daily and annual electricity production (AEP) of PV power plants. The results of comparisons of the proposed model that takes into account the fact that not all the diffuse irradiation incident on the surface between PV rows and the existing irradiation models justify proposed irradiation model. The significance of the proposed model is highlighted for bifacial PV power plants due to significant share of reflected irradiation component in production bifacial PV power plants. Depending on a reflection coefficient of the surface between PV rows and the distance between PV rows, a deflection of the production based on the proposed and existing model of irradiation can reach even more than 20%. For the same reflection coefficient of the surface between PV power plants, the production of bifacial PV power plant is bigger even for more than 20%, and LCOE smaller for 8.7% in comparison with monofacial PV power plants. Taking into account the power plant owners’ interests in profit maximization, it has been shown that it is economically justifiable to mount reflectors between PV rows in bifacial PV power plants in case when the reflection coefficient is above 0.6 provided that its price does not exceed 7.4 €/m2.

REGIONALNA KONWERGENCJA PRODUKTYWNOŚCI PRACY SEKTORÓW WIEJSKICH W KONTEKŚCIE ŚRODKÓW POZYSKANYCH NA ROLNICTWO Z UNII EUROPEJSKIEJ

The production of renewable energy has been increasing in Poland in accordance with the EU mandate. Solar energy use, in particular, has been affected by regulations and the associated subsidy mechanism. The specific aim of the tudy was the verification of the influence exerted by renewable energy regulations on the amount of revenues and duration of the period when an investor can expect positive returns on operating a PV power plant. The analysis involved five scenarios and used financial and operational data shared by the existing PV power plant in Jadowniki, Poland. Two scenarios refer to plants operating under the support mechanism applied before July 1, 2016, while three scenarios consider plants operating under the auction system that became the support mechanism for renewable energy producers on July 1, 2016. Scenarios I and II generate a positive NPV and IRR under the assumed conditions including the use of green certificates. For PV power plants operating since July 1, 2016, Scenarios III and IV show that the return is dependent on the auction price and the size of NPV and IRR discourages investment. Scenario V assumes absence of support in the form of green certificates or through auction systems and generates loss. The continuing changes in the regulation of power generation from renewable energy sources, including solar energy, creates uncertainties that are likely to discourage investment in large commercial PV power plants in Poland.

Hybridization strategies of power-to-gas systems and battery storage using renewable energy

In this paper, the hybrid concept to use renewable electricity to produce hydrogen with an electrolyser in combination with a battery is introduced and analysed. This hybrid system opens the possibility to optimise operation and to increase operation times of the system and thus to improve the techno-economic performance. To analyse the performance, a model has been developed, which designs and operates a single or hybrid power-to-gas system in a cost optimal manner. The underlying method is a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) approach, which minimises total system costs. The cost optimisation modelling is performed by a case study for a hybrid electrolyser/battery system directly coupled with a large PV power plant without grid connection. The results show, that batteries can support electrolyser operation in a reasonable way. This is however associated with higher hydrogen production costs and not competitive compared to the installation of additional electrolyser capacity or curtailment of electricity.

Power Ramp Limitation Capabilities of Large PV Power Plants With Active Power Reserves

Power ramp limitation (PRL) is likely to become a requirement for large-scale photovoltaic power plants (LPVPPs) in order to allow the increase of PV penetration levels. Especially in islands with reduced inertia capability, this problem is more stringent: high-power ramp can be caused by either fast irradiance changes or other participant generators for example wind power, or loads. In order to compensate for the power mismatch, LPVPPs must use active power reserve (APR), by either curtailment or auxiliary storage. The paper proposes a PRL control structure for dynamic APR sizing and deployment. The selected test case is the power system of Puerto Rico (PREPA), modeled using the modified IEEE 12 bus benchmark system, with different levels of PV penetration. It is shown that LPVPP with PRL can effectively reduce the ramping rate of the participating generators. Considering that the large area of LPVPPs acts as a filter against fast irradiance changes, the study also reveals the required plant size for which an auxiliary storage is no longer needed in order to comply with PRL requirements—an important economical aspect.

Modeling the Temporal Variations in the Output of Large Solar PV Power Plants

With the rapid increase in the cumulative installations around the world, solar PV technology has started playing a major role in the global clean energy scenario. One of the major challenges for the large scale integration of solar energy with the power grids is its intermittent nature. In this paper, temporal variations in the power output of six different solar PV technologies are quantified and modeled. The solar cells considered are single crystalline, poly crystalline, micro crystalline amorphous silicon, copper Indium Selenium (CIS) and hetero-junction with intrinsic thin layer (HIT). Three years of performance data from a 1.2 MW experimental solar PV farm in Brunei Darussalam were used for the modeling. It was found that the variations in the PV output follow the Cauchy's probability distribution. Ramping down behaviour of the solar panel was critically analyzed and expected ramp downs at 95% confidence level are presented. HIT modules showed the highest ramp rate among the panels, whereas CIS showed the lowest fluctuations.

Commissioning and Operational Control of Photovoltaic Power Plants through Online Simulation

Photovoltaic system simulation tools are mostly used for the planning and yield prediction of power plants.During the commissioning procedure and especially during the operation of a photovoltaic power plant simple algorithms are used to convert the measured power under varying irradiance conditions to standard test conditions. Faults are only detected, if there is a significant deviation between the photovoltaic system power or daily production and the estimated production based on measured irradiance levels. In large PV power plants this can result in high economic losses, which could be reduced if the monitoring mechanisms were supported by precise modelling of the photovoltaic generator.In this work, an integrated monitoring and simulation method was developed and tested for very precise online simulation of photovoltaic power plants. The method is based on detailed one or two diode current-voltage curve modelling of the photovoltaic generator. Depending on the technology, between six (crystalline) and ten (thin films) modelling parameters for the IV curve are required. The parameters are either derived from the data sheet information of the PV modules or more precisely from measured IV curves of the modules at difference irradiance levels.Using simulated IV curves, an MPP tracking algorithm and voltage dependent inverter models, a simulation accuracy of 2% is reached, so that any problems with the PV generator can reliably be detected. Using internet based communication technology for the data exchange, the online simulation can be carried out directly on the site of the photovoltaic power plant or from any remote location. Remote simulation offers the advantage to the PV plant operator, that it can also be done as a simulation service and that the software environment does not need to be purchased.To demonstrate the method, online simulation of several grid connected PV generators up to the MW power range is carried out during the commissioning and operation of photovoltaic plants. A powerful visualisation within the same software environment includes both the monitored and the simulated online data sets, so that a very efficient fault detection scheme is available. The method is excellently suited to provide automatic and real time fault detection and significantly improve the commissioning procedure for photovoltaic plants of all sizes.

Integration of temperature and dust effects in siting large PV power plant in hot arid area

Recently, solar PV technologies witnessed a commercial vigor due to their tremendously decreasing prices. However, these technologies are vulnerable to dust and temperature which can significantly degrade their efficiency. Taking into account, the effect of dust and temperature during the site assessment for large PV power plant will reduce their vulnerability and optimize their operation efficiency. Most of the site assessment for large PV power plants does not take into consideration spatio-temporal variability of dust and temperature effects due to their measurement complexity. This paper presents an original approach of integration of the effects of temperature and dust in siting large PV power plant using Fuzzy logic and GIS-based spatial multi-criteria evaluation. Dynamical downscaling approach of the high resolution COSMO Numerical Weather Prediction model is used to simulate the annual pattern of temperature and the Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) derived from Multi-angle Imaging Spectro-Radiometer (MISR) is used to retrieve the contamination degree of the air with mineral aerosol. Land suitability analysis for large PV farms implementation is carried out for the case study of Oman. Compared to previous results obtained without temperature and AOD, the new results show that several areas are declassified because of their exposure to high temperature and dust risks. It is noticed that the highly suitable land areas decreased significantly by 81% after considering the temperature and dust constraint layers. Different PV technologies are considered and it is found that the Concentrated Photovoltaics (CPV) technology provides higher potential for implementing large solar plants. In fact, if all highly suitable land is exploited for CPV farms, it can supply more than 750 times the current total power supply in Oman estimated at 16.1 TWh in 2010.

Environmental Friendly PV Power Plant

Energy is the biggest crisis to humanity in the future. Nowadays, most of the energy used on earth comes from oil, gas and coal. According to the recent exploring and consuming rates, the energy will be exhausted in 50-100 years. Whether we can solve the crisis is closely related to the survival of humanity on the earth. The irradiation from the sun is the biggest energy source. Building PV power plant to utilize the energy from sun will be an only way to sustain the life cycle on the earth. However, the development of PV power plants require the huge supply of PV cell and the fabrication process may bring a quantity of pollution and waste, which is harmful to the environment. On the other hand, super large PV power plant will occupy huge land. If the land cannot be explored and used reasonably, this will not benefit the human life either. In this article, we address the discussions about the above problems and propose the initial suggestions about development trend of PV industry and the safety operation mode of super PV power plant.

Electricity from sunlight: an introduction to photovoltaics

About the Author. Preface. Acknowledgements. 1. Introduction. 1.1 The Sun, Earth, and Renewable Energy. 1.2 The Solar Resource. 1.3 The Magic of Photovoltaics. 1.4 A Piece of History. 1.5 Coming up to Date. References. 2. Solar Cells. 2.1 Setting the Scene. 2.2 Crystalline Silicon. 2.2.1 The Ideal Crystal. 2.2.2 The p n Junction. 2.2.3 Monocrystalline Silicon. 2.2.3.1 Photons in Action. 2.2.3.2 Generating Power. 2.2.3.3 Sunlight, Silicon, and Quantum Mechanics. 2.2.3.4 Refi ning the Design. 2.2.4 Multicrystalline Silicon. 2.3 Amorphous and Thin-fi lm Silicon. 2.4 Other Cells and Materials. 2.4.1 Copper Indium Diselenide (CIS). 2.4.2 Cadmium Telluride (CdTe). 2.4.3 Specialised and Innovative Cells. 2.4.3.1 Gallium Arsenide (GaAs). 2.4.3.2 Dye-sensitised Cells. References. 3. PV Modules and Arrays. 3.1 Introductory. 3.2 Electrical Performance. 3.2.1 Connecting Cells and Modules. 3.2.2 Module Parameters. 3.3 Capturing Sunlight. 3.3.1 Sunshine and Shadow. 3.3.2 Aligning the Array. 3.4 Concentration and Tracking. References. 4. Grid-connected PV Systems. 4.1 Introductory. 4.2 From DC to AC. 4.3 Completing the System. 4.4 Building-integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV). 4.4.1 Engineering and Architecture. 4.4.2 PV Outside, PV Inside. 4.5 Large PV Power Plants. References. 5. Stand-alone PV Systems. 5.1 Remote and Independent. 5.2 System Components. 5.2.1 Batteries. 5.2.2 Charge Controllers. 5.2.3 Inverters. 5.3 Hybrid Systems. 5.4 System Sizing. 5.4.1 Assessing the Problem. 5.4.2 PV Arrays and Battery Banks. 5.5 Applications. 5.5.1 PV in Space. 5.5.2 Island Electricity. 5.5.3 PV Water Pumping. 5.5.4 Solar-powered Boats. 5.5.5 Far and Wide. References. 6. Economics and the Environment. 6.1 Paying for PV. 6.1.1 Costs and Markets. 6.1.2 Financial Incentives. 6.1.3 Rural Electrification. 6.2 Environmental Aspects. 6.2.1 Raw Materials and Land. 6.2.2 Life-cycle Analysis. References. Index.

The promise of concentrators

This paper addresses the issue of why concentrator systems have not gained a significant market share. The history of concentrator development is reviewed, and the status of existing concentrator efforts outlined. A critical look at the requirements to propel concentrators to a prominent market role in large-scale power production is presented. Various concentrator and flat-plate PV system approaches are compared by computing the expected cost of energy, and conclusions are drawn as to what the best course of action will be. Concentrator systems are projected to be the lowest-cost, lowest-risk PV option for medium and large PV power plants. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.