Is Plant Performance Monitoring important for improvement ? Let’s have a look.

Published by firstgreen on

Plant Performance is basically is a powerful Buisness Intelligence Sollution for improving productivity & operational efficiency.On the other hand Performance Monitoring is a set of process to be able to determine how well the system is running. Overall this whole approach is important in every aspects whether in terms of Power Plant or in Renewable energy sector.

In today’s era The Plant Performance Monitoring is most necessary as well as important. By continually monitoring the performance characteristics of key assets, the causes of reduced production can be identified very early so timely action can prevent losses resulting from downtime and emergency repairs. In case Solar Plant similarly Better Performance is required to utilize the energy & quickly recover the Invested money. The main objective of performance assessment of the solar PV plant is to evaluate that whether the given solar PV power plant is performing as per the realistic maximum performance expectations or not. For this Performance Assessment, Performance Ratio is important. This is defined as below : Performance Ratio= Energy Output/Energy modelled.( For Solar Plant) Energy modelled = PV area effective* Average irradiance* Module efficiency. For calculating Performance ratio in Solar Plant  there are few parameters which are to be looked upon, which are mentioned : Environmental factors:

  • Improper positioning of Temperature sensor on PV module.
  • Shading and/or Soiling of Pyranometer. Other factors:
  • Recording period.
  • Efficiency of the PV modules.
  • Efficiency of the inverter.
  • Conduction/cabling losses. As per IEC 61724 , there are minimum certain parameters which are to be monitored continuously for any Solar Plant to improve the Performance to get more than actual solar generation. These parameters include:
 Meteorology : · Total irradiance, in the plane of the array. · Ambient air temperature.  · Wind speed.Photovoltaic array: · Output voltage. · Output power. · Module temperature. · Mounting / track. Load: · Load voltage. · Load current.   · Load power.
Energy storage: · Operating voltage. · Current to/from storage . · Power to/from storage. · Utility grid.Utility voltage: · Each phase – Current to/from utility grid. · Power to/from utility grid.Back-up sources: · Output voltage. · Output current.