Solar PV O&M – The Indian Experience

November 12, 2013 Mumbai, India

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Solar PV Plants - Built to Last?

“A review of 30,000 installations in Europe by the German solar monitoring firm Meteocontrol found 80 percent were underperforming. ”

- New York Times, May 28, 2013

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What about India?- Solar sector relatively new in India – no information readily

available- RESolve Survey

- Insights from more than 600 MW plants- Plants commissioned after January 2012- States include Rajasthan, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu

among others

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Agenda

• Criticality of O&M

• O&M – Global insights

• O&M in India – RESolve Survey results

• Takeaways

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It all starts with LCOELevelised Cost of Electricity(LCOE) – Cost of energy generation over the lifetime

Source: Sun Power

LCOE =

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Levers to reduce LCOE

Plant Performance Maximization

One-timeRecurring ~ Rs.10-11

Lakhs/MW/Year

One-time - 10% of the

CAPEX

LCOE =

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Factors affecting generation

Project Development - Land siting- Irradiation

assessment- Conceptual

design- Financing- Technology

evaluation- EPC selection

Construction- Engineering

- Optimized design

- Shading analysis

- Row Spacing

- Procurement- Component

selection- Construction

- Build quality

Operation and Maintenance Phase• Pilferage• Grid

availability• System uptime• Performance

of sub-components

Asset Creation Phase – About 1 Year

Asset Management

Phase – 25 Years

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O&M Basics• Preventive Maintenance (PM) which includes routine

inspection and servicing of equipment which help prevent breakdowns and reduce energy yield losses.  PM is usually a scheduled activity.

• Condition-Based Monitoring(CBM) involves monitoring of equipment condition and plant operations on a real-time basis and addresses a potential problem at a very early stage to prevent downtime. This requires a robust plant performance monitoring system.

• Corrective Maintenance(CM) or Breakdown Maintenance(BM)  includes repair of broken down equipment and is usually reactive.

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Preventive Maintenance(PM)1

Panel cleaning – At twice a month or depending upon the dust conditions

2Vegetation Management – After rainfall and based on local conditions

3 DC & AC electrical sub system testing

4 Mechanical inspections

5 IV Curve Testing

6 Sensor Calibration

7 Security Systems

8 Documentation of events

9 Warranty Management

10 Diagnose faults through data mining

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Condition-Based Monitoring(CBM)

1 Active Monitoring(Inverter Level)

2 Energy Meter Management

3 Real time monitoring and verification

4 Daily, Weekly and Monthly reports

5 Performance Ratio and Generation report

6 String level monitoring

7 Manage anomaly alerts and alarm management

8 Web portal

9 Historical data trends

10 Performance Optimization

11 In-depth analysis report

12 Accelerated PV degradation report

13 Security system(fire alarm, intrusion alarm)

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Corrective Maintenance(CM)

1Emergency Maintenance(Function check and 2 hrs response time)

2 Automated owner and technical plant alert(email/sms)

3 Failure analysis & report generation

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Agenda

• Criticality of O&M

• O&M – Global insights

• O&M in India – RESolve Survey results

• Takeaways

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Global experience

• Electric Power Research Institute, July 2010

• Survey respondents – 6 utility companies, PV monitoring system providers, vertically integrated PV manufacturers, solar energy service providers

• Eg. SunEdison, SunPower, Southern California Edison(SCE)

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EPRI Survey coverage

• In-House Vs Outsource O&M• Failure analysis• O&M Budgeting• Panel cleaning• Plant Monitoring and information

collection• Warranty Management• Lessons learned

Focus of this presentation

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Failure Analysis : 80-20 Rule

368 managed PV systems, 117 MW (Sun Edison)

20% of events caused 80% of lost energy generation

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Failure Analysis – Failure Areas

Inverters failed the most number of times, but bigger impact due to AC subsystems

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Failure Analysis – Root Cause

Components used and construction quality impacts leading causes of energy loss

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EPRI Survey takeaways

- Identify the most critical areas of failure – 80:20 rule

- Inverters fail the most in terms of number of events, but AC subsystems caused high energy losses as per EPRI survey

- Component selection and build quality extremely important

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Agenda

• Criticality of O&M

• O&M – Global insights

• O&M in India – RESolve Survey results

• Takeaways

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RESolve Survey OverviewCompanies that participated in the survey  Type

1

A Project Developer not wanting to be identified

Developer/IPP

2Waaree Energies EPC

3Sterling and Wilson EPC

4Tata Power SolarDeveloper and EPC

5Solairedirect IndiaDeveloper/IPP and EPC

6Staten Solar EPC

7L&T EPC

8Vikram EPC

• Total size of projects under O&M – 566 MW +

• States covered– Rajasthan– Gujarat– Tamil Nadu– Maharashtra– Andhra Pradesh– Others

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RESolve Survey Overview

O&M Contract Duration  Average 9 YearsMedian 5 YearsRange 1 year to 25 years

 5 Years most frequent, followed by 10

Years

Annual O&M Cost  Average Rs. 9 Lakhs/MWMedian Rs. 9.5 Lakhs/MWRange Rs. 6 to 10 Lakhs/MW/Year

 Majority in the range of Rs. 10

Lakhs/MW/Year

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Major Failure events

Note: 1. DC Subsystems: All components on the DC side before the inverter2. AC Subsystems: All components on the AC side of the inverter(including LV and HV)

Grid Issues Inverters DC Subsystems AC Subsystems SCADA PV Modules Mounting Structures0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

82%

77%

61%57%

52%

46%

25%

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Energy loss causes

Note: 1. DC Subsystems: All components on the DC side before the inverter2. AC Subsystems: All components on the AC side of the inverter(including LV and HV)

Grid Issues Inverters DC Subsystems AC Subsystems PV Modules Mounting Structures SCADA0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

93%

75%70%

64%

55%

27%

16%

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Failure Causes

Grid non-availability Component defects Build quality Vandalism Other0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

66%

50%48%

32%

18%

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Some comments from respondents• “ Absolute energy guarantee should be done away with

more focus on periodic PR measurement and corrective measures on a regular basis. Emphasis on Training for Engineers and Technicians at field level.”

• “Major differentiators are 1) Cleaning of Modules 2) Grid availability. All other losses are very low. Inverter and SMU losses happens every rarely. Energy loss due to AC system, Structure, module etc are very, very rare.”

• “Remote sites causing higher O&M cost. Gap between the projected generation and actual is having a wide gap due to non availability of radiation data in the initial period.”

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Agenda

• Criticality of O&M

• O&M – Global insights

• O&M in India – RESolve Survey results

• Takeaways

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Critical areas of failure - 1

• The Grid – Major bottleneck– Highest number of failure events and highest loss

of generation– Unfortunately, this is an external non-controllable

cause

• Inverters– Heart of the PV system– Biggest internal controllable cause, in line with

global trends

• DC and AC sub-systems also require attention

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Critical areas of failure - 2

• PV Modules, SCADA and mounting structures rank lower

• Failure causes – components used and build quality

Bottomline – Entire electrical system requires utmost attention

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What could be done? - 1

• The Grid– Infrastructure problem : push towards improved

grid infrastructure

• Inverters– Fool-proof technical evaluation before

procurement– Ensure excellent after-sales support from

vendor– Critical spare parts to be maintained at site – Invest in training of field O&M personnel

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What could be done? - 2

• DC and AC sub-systems – Component selection critical– Trained manpower in the field can help in up-time

• PV Modules, SCADA and mounting structures– Though not critical during the initial years, these

components can create head-ache during later years

– Focus to be on component selection and build quality

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Finally,

Excellence in O&M can be the difference between “good” plant performance and “great” plant performance!!

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Thank you

Madhavan NampoothiriFounder and Directormadhavan@re-solve.in

www.re-solve.in

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About RESolve

• Advisory firm with strong capabilities in Strategic, Regulatory , Commercial and Technical aspects of renewable energy projects

• Founded by professionals from India and Germany with strong global exposure

• Specific focus on Solar PV and Wind in India

• Offerings in – Advisory on Concept-to-Commissioning of PV projects– Policy and Regulatory advice

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RESolve Whitepaper

• RESolve regularly publishes whitepapers

• The most read and downloaded whitepaper is “ Sunrise in Gujarat”

• • This whitepaper ranks 50

solar PV plants in Gujarat based on their energy generation in the first year of operations

• Click on the adjacent image to download it