Software Analysis of Cuttack 500kW Solar Plant

India is the first in the world for designing and implementing a solar-powered system to run the load of an international airport located at Cochin. Solar power plants have been built across the country including Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh and other states with various schemes.
Presently India is 9th in the world ranking with 4.963GW of installed capacity by solar photovoltaic technology

PVSyst Analysis

PVSyst is a user-friendly photovoltaic system design and simulation tool which gives a wide range of inputs for simulation and provides detailed performance characteristic of PV system in grid-connected as well as standalone mode. PVSyst has a large database of meteorological data for a number of location all over the world. It also provides manual insertion of measured data for sites which are not enlisted in the software. It presents results in the form of a full report which includes specific graphs and tables.

Figure below shows the energy production per kWp and losses for 12 months

According to the simulation, the power generation for the year 2015 is 143240 kWh. The variation in power generation by each month is shown in the table II. The actual power generated in the year 2015 is 141593 kWh. The actual power generated by each month is compared with simulation result. Thus PVSyst software provides the approach for the comparing simulation results with actual results in wide range of time period of power generation.

The loss flow diagram of the system is shown in the below figure.

Incidence Angle Modifier (IAM)
This refers to the reduction of insolation reaching photovoltaic cell due to reflection of sun rays while passing through glass cover of PV module. These losses increase with increase in incident angle with respect to sun position [3]. For present system, these losses are 3.02%.

The PV loss due to irradiance level refers to the decrease in module efficiency in low light conditions and it is 0.58% in this case.

The system has maximum losses due to temperature that is 14.3%. The performance of the solar module changes with change in temperature. The temperature coefficient of module and thermal loss factor affect this loss. The thermal loss factor is not a scientifically determined value but it is set by designers according to experience and previous estimations. A value of 20W/m2k is acceptable for most systems. If modules are mounted on roof structure, the value can be set to 15. When the modules are free standing in a cool and windy location, the value can be set to 29.

The module quality loss is 0.75% which depends on tolerance value of quality loss provided by the manufacturer. It is calculated by lower tolerance plus a quarter of the difference between lower and higher tolerance.

The module mismatch loss is 1.10%. it is because of mismatch between modules in string. The reasons for mismatch can be different tilt angles, different types of cable connections, uneven soiling, the temperature difference between modules

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