Plant Performance

The effective operation and maintenance of large PV power plants is critical to ensuring these facilities perform optimally. Sara Ver-Bruggen looks at the latest O&M technologies and strategies emerging as plant owners seek to maximise their investment returns.

Maximising production from a PV system is critical, since nearly all of the investment is made prior to system activation. Monitoring of PV systems allows operators to identify any performance or safety problems early so that they can be repaired quickly, thus minimising energy losses. Joshua Stein of Sandia National Laboratories and Mike Green of M.G. Lightning Electrical Engineering discuss some new monitoring strategies that are necessary for expeditiously identifying and locating system faults.

Fixed and tracker solar mounting systems offer various relative cost and performance benefits. But as JA Solar’s Zhang Lan Jun and Gong Tie Yu describe, surprising results from field analysis of different systems used in China hold important lessons for developers wondering which ones to choose.

Investors are looking for steady and predictable returns from their PV plant assets. Ben Willis charts the rise of monitoring technology and how it is becoming an increasingly indispensable part of the PV equation.

The build-up of dust and other particles on PV modules can impact on the efficiency of a power plant. Understanding how soiling can vary in different regions of the world is crucial in maximising plant performance, writes Dmytro Podolskyy.