Plant Performance

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.

Pressures on PV plant performance have led the solar industry to be more demanding and forensic of the data operational projects generate, as well as the power. Jules Scully explores the growing role software is playing in the utility-scale solar arena and how it must evolve further still to meet expectations.

As solar finds itself installed in further flung climes, so it must operate in harsher conditions. PV CAMPER, a collaborative effort including some of the world’s leading academic and research institutes, has set itself the aim of uncovering data to help drive the industry forward. Here, members of PV CAMPER discuss some of their preliminary findings.