Last update 7 DEC 2023

A photovoltaic systems manteinance bordering on perfection

It is already the 6th year that we have the irradiance sensors for an O&M in Foggia that manages 60 MW of plants: the ones managed by them stand out by the performance (around 84% and more) of the plants.

Plants maintenance – their recipe is always the same

Their recipe is always the same. Their operating costs are high, although their plants were built 11 years ago they seem very up to date! Rhythmic controls of AC/DC, inverter cabinets, modules, very low resolution times and of course a constant calculation of the Performance Ratio through multiple redundancy irradiance sensors arranged on the module plane (P.O.A). They have at least one spare part for each of the strategic components of the plant.

At the end: as well as receiving a high fee for each MW managed, this O&M has got many incentives ones for performance above contractual threshold (which I do not quote because they are sensitive data; contact me and I will be able to reveal more…)

This has been going on for years…. On the other hand it is a win-win operation: the more earns the ownership, the more earns the O&M.

Dr Calatroni’s thought

Few days ago the technical manager of the plants called and he was a bit resentful:
the irradiance sensors that we had just calibrated showed 5 ÷ 8 watts more than those still to be calibrated. Dr Calatroni’s thought was “As they notice a deviation of 0,5% it implies a perfect mastery of the system”. In short, they have a better precision than that required by ISO 61724-1:2017-Photovoltaic system performance and also the newly released ISO 61724-1:2021