Solar Power Plant (GRID Tie) Technical Aspects & Project Management

K. S. Narayanan Head Solar Projects NKG Infrastructure Limited 118, Mangal Murti Complex Ashram Road, Ahmedabad 380009. +91 99798 83721; +91 99251 03804 ksnarayan2011@gmail.com

Why Solar?
Solar Energy, not an option but a compulsion. Reliability - abundance of sunshine. Sustainability - compared to other sources which are either based on depleting resources or location / season specific. Eco-friendly (non-polluting).

Planning a Solar Power Project

Technology Selection Optimising the Project Cost Project Execution key factors Post construction O & M

Technology Selection
SOLAR CELL
Concentrated PV Thin film cells

Amorphous Silicon Cells

Copper-Indium diselenide (CIS)

Cadmium-teluride cells (CdTe)

Dye cells

Microcrystalline & micromorphous cells

Crystalline Silicon cells Monocrystalline Cells Polycrystalline Cells Polycrystalline POWER cells Polycrystalline band cells Polycrystalline thin-film cells

Crystalline Silicon Thin Film

Advantages: Reduction in electricity production with temperature increase is lesser compared to crystalline modules. Lower material cost per Wp. Comparatively, lower energy consumption processes. Light weight and flexible substrate. Disadvantages: Relatively lower efficiency. Longer period for stabilization. Advantages: Higher efficiency levels upto 20%. Sustained dominance in PV industry > 25 years. Higher (I) / Lower (V) features enable easier system design. Performance Guarantee > 25 years. Disadvantages: Consumption of material (Si) is far more than what is actually needed for converting light into electricity. High dependence on polysilicon availability & pricing. Efficieny declines at temperature > 25C.

Concentrated Photo Voltaic

Advantages: Concentrating the sun light by optical devices like lenses or mirrors reduces the area of expensive solar cells / modules. Increases the efficiency. Disadvantages: Necessity to track the suns orbit by moving the system accordingly. Increases the O&M cost. Still in testing phase and to date, not been operationalised to a large scale.

Power Conditioning Unit (PCU) Central Inverter String Inverter

Advantages of a String Inverter: In case of failure of one inverter, the plant will not suffer loss of production, as in the case of a Central Inverter. Replacement of a single String Inverter is a plug and play, if we have spares on hand. Redundancy of the plant to the string level. Efficiency increase due to String level Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT). Reduction in usage of DC Cable, resulting in DC Cable Loss. Less machine downtime when compared to Central Inverters. The string inverters do not require a specified Control Room and can be mounted beside the Solar Array, on a simple iron clad pedestal.

Support Structure
Conventionally, all PV Developers follow beaten track of using steel members. Not only involves fabrication outside the site, but also requires galvanizing to hedge Corrosion effect. Major time spent on structure fabrication. Option is available to use Fiberglass Reinforced Structure (FRS) members -- corrosion resistant and zero maintenance. Ease of jointing comparatively easier in FRS.

Operation & Maintenance

Building adequate capacity to ensure power generation estimates, by applying liberal derating factors for the Array and recognizing efficiency parameters of PCUs, Trafos, Transmission Lines etc. Provide redundancy to ensure minimum 50% availability in case of breakdown of Trafos. Use of equipment, systems of proven design & performance, having high availability track record, under similar conditions. Selection of equipment & adoption of a plant layout to ensure ease of maintenance. Strict compliance with approved & proven quality assurance norms and procedures. Optimum availability of modules during daytime, shadow-free. Single axis tracking, if possible, will ensure maximum harvest of sunshine. High DC System Voltage and Low Current handling requirement. Selection of trafos with low maintenance requirement.

Training of Personnel
Nature, purpose and limitations of all Plant & Equipment. Detailed operating instructions on each section and equipment of the plant. Normal start-up & shutdown programme of the plant. Emergency procedures and all related HSE issues, according to the Standards. The basis for the training shall be the O&M Manual.

Thank You!