PID in India: In the cost-conscious Indian solar sector, ensuring reliable power output should be the number one priority. However, an example of one solar farm suffering from the ill-effects of under-performing modules, installation malpractice and unsatisfactory maintenance shows how corner cutting from the outset is more damaging in the long run.
The northwestern Indian state of Rajasthan is one of the nation's hotter, drier corners. While monsoon rains do lick at the state's southern reaches, much of the land lies in a rain shadow: the dusty Thar Desert exerts a greater climatic influence on the state, bringing aridity and extreme temperatures throughout much of the year.
Bordering Pakistan and edging close to India's capital, Delhi, Rajasthan is strategically important but relatively sparsely populated: despite being the largest Indian state in area, it is only the seventh-largest in terms of population.
These factors combined have made the state an attractive location for vast, ultra-mega solar plants, including the Bhadla Solar Park, which has attracted India's lowest solar price of INR 2.44/kWh ($0.037/kWh). But while the current pace of development and interest in solar in Rajasthan is unprecedented, back in 2010 PV developers were entering pretty much unchartered territory.
While India is poised to add around 10 GW of new solar PV capacity in 2017 alone, seven years ago the installed base was negligible, and any ground-mounted solar project was a curiosity, a pioneer, and a litmus test of what was to come. Since then, technology, knowledge, expertise and policy support have all improved, but there are still lingering concerns that a cost-conscious mindset continues to prevail - EPCs and investors eager to keep their capital expenditure (Capex) as low as possible, and thus willing to cut corners on quality from the get-go. So what lessons can be learned from analyzing those very first solar installations that can be applied today? Let's go back to 2010…
A 5 MW pioneer
Built in Rajasthan between 2010 and 2011, a 5 MW solar plant was intended to be the first phase of a larger 45 MW solar array. These later stages did not materialize because quite soon after commissioning, the plant's owner recognized problems with the array.
The solar farm was built using crystalline solar modules, and secured a power purchase agreement (PPA) for its solar electricity at a rate of 15.78 INR/kWh ($0.25/kWh). Initial calculations by the investor was that the solar farm could generate 7.5 million units of electricity per year, generating an annual income of approximately $1.8 million. In actual fact, based on tests carried out by researchers at India's National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE) and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, the solar plant was actually only generating electricity to the value of $860,000 per year - less than half its projected generation performance.
Subrahmanyam Pulipaka, the CEO and co-founder of Soreva Energy and then graduate student and researcher at BITS Pilani, analyzed the solar plant's generation data from over a period of four years and found that ...Den vollständigen Artikel lesen ...
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