System Integration

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PV Tech Power Papers, System Integration
Microinverters and power optimisers have become increasingly common features of smaller PV systems. Sara ver Bruggen reports on the technologies’ gradual transition into larger commercial and utility-scale applications.
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PV Tech Power Papers, System Integration
With competition in the tracker marketplace becoming extremely fierce, rival companies are adding new features all the time aimed at minimising installation and operation costs, and enhancing durability. Here we profile some of the single-axis trackers currently available on the market and the innovative design features they offer.
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PV Tech Power Papers, System Integration
The renewable energy market is currently booming, with large numbers of PV systems being installed throughout the world. However, a primary objective of any PV power system is to ensure that the system operates continuously and reliably. As Vicente Salas from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) explains, this aspect takes on special relevance in the case of utility-scale PV projects.
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PV Tech Power Papers, System Integration
PV modules are subjected to various loads during installation handling. Research teams from the Institute for Solar Energy Research Hamelin (ISFH) and Hanwha Q CELLS attended the installations of PV modules in order to develop various test sequences for quantifying the effects of handling loads on the modules. As a result of these observations, lab tests have been designed to evaluate the impact of module-handling loads on cell cracking in the modules. Some rules for module handling are subsequently proposed.
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PV Tech Power Papers, System Integration
Inside Cestas, Europe's largest solar project.
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PV Tech Power Papers, System Integration
Chile’s Atacama Desert has some of the best irradiance resources on the planet but also some of the harshest operation conditions. Scientists are working on a new type of bifacial glass-glass PV module, AtaMo, designed to make the best of the region’s resources while withstanding its rigours. Here they outline some promising preliminary results from the project.
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PV Tech Power Papers, System Integration
Power oscillation | In the last few years the power rating of PV power plants has risen very quickly to values reaching several hundred megawatts. This means there are hundreds, or even thousands, of inverters operating in parallel in these plants. Furthermore, these large-scale PV power plants are often built far away from cities and are therefore connected to the grid via long transmission lines. This leads to weak grid conditions in the power plants, and these conditions give rise to the risk of electrical instabilities within the plant, or instabilities of the plant within the grid. Roland Singer of Fraunhofer ISE explains how these electrical instabilities can be detected and counteracted.
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PV Tech Power Papers, System Integration
PV panel reflction | The increasing deployment of PV systems in dense urban areas has drawn attention to the issue of glare and the public discomfort arising from the sun’s reflection on the PV panels. Licheng Liu, Yong Sheng Khoo and Thomas Reindl of the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) and Julius Tan of Sunseap Energy discuss ways of fine-tuning system designs and alleviating visual discomfort, while not compromising on the energy yield of PV systems.
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PV Tech Power Papers, System Integration
Covering a 1,295-hectare estate mostly of fallow farmland, the world’s largest solar plant sits in the Antelope Valley straddling two counties of California. The Solar Star project has been supplying its full 579MW of capacity to the grid since May this year and it will be announced as offi cially complete before the end of 2015. PV Tech Power explored the designs behind this mammoth installation near Rosamond, California, to investigate what key factors had to be considered when creating a solar plant that can supply electricity to more than a quarter of a million homes.
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PV Tech Power Papers, System Integration
Performance | Potential-induced degradation (PID) has emerged as an issue of concern in the last decade because of the increase in the deployment of utility-scale high-voltage PV systems. Rubina Singh, Cordula Schmid and Jacqueline Ashmore of the Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems CSE present an overview of the mechanisms for PID and the impact of degradation, as well as the factors that contribute to its occurrence. They also discuss techniques for the detection, mitigation and predictive testing of PID.

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