Performance Metrics of a Grid Connected Photovoltaic Plant: A Practical Case of the 1.3MW Phakalane Plant in Gaborone, Botswana
Keywords:
Photovoltaic (PV) plant, Grid connected, Performance Ratio (PR), Capacity utilization factor (CUF), Technical Availability, Mean Time Before Failure (MTBF), Mean Time To Repair (MTTR)Abstract
The performance of a solar photovoltaic plant can be analyzed using various key performance indicators such as performance ratio, capacity utilization factor, system efficiency, system availability etc. This paper is a presentation of the performance of a 1.3MW grid connected photovoltaic system in Gaborone, Botswana. The methodology utilizes the energy generated and supplied to the grid from January to December 2020 to compute the quality ratios: performance ratio, capacity utilization factor and the technical availability of the plant. During the period of study, the grid connected plant injected 2,245,505.00 kWh of energy to the national grid with the final yield, reference yield, performance ratio and the capacity utilization factor of: 1 724 peak sun hours; 2 196 peak sun hours; 78.5%; and 19.66% respectively. Comparing it with other plants this system’s performance is very good. However, the technical availability of the plant was only 57.4% with Mean Time Before Failure (MTBF) of 129 hours and Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) of 96 hours. Therefore, this paper reveals the impact of grid interference and prolonged downtime on the performance of grid tied PV systems. The study gives insight to engineers, researchers, decision makers and other stakeholders in this field so that focus must be directed to ensure the availability of such power plants especially in Africa where most grids experience frequent tripping.
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