Long-term degradation rate of crystalline silicon PV modules at commercial PV plants: an 82-MWp assessment over 10 years

Due to high competitiveness in the PV sector, despite the low degradation rate of crystalline silicon PV modules (below 0.5%/year), it is still important for utilities to know its actual value due to its impact on energy yield and hence, profitability, over the lifetime of a PV plant. However, uncer...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Pascual Miqueleiz, Julio María, Martínez Moreno, Francisco, García Solano, Miguel, Marcos Álvarez, Javier, Marroyo Palomo, Luis, Lorenzo Pigueiras, Eduardo
Formato: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Recursos:Universidad Pública de Navarra
Repositorio:Academica-e. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad Pública de Navarra
OAI Identifier:oai:academica-e.unavarra.es:2454/41490
Acesso em linha:https://hdl.handle.net/2454/41490
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Crystalline silicon
Degradation rate
Field testing
PV module
PV plant
Descrição
Resumo:Due to high competitiveness in the PV sector, despite the low degradation rate of crystalline silicon PV modules (below 0.5%/year), it is still important for utilities to know its actual value due to its impact on energy yield and hence, profitability, over the lifetime of a PV plant. However, uncertainties related to both the influence of downtime periods due to problems that may appear under normal operation of a commercial PV plant and to the measurement of degradation rates at PV plant level make this a challenging task. In order to obtain a significant value, in this paper, three measuring methods with different uncertainty sources are used for 82 MWp of PV modules on different locations in Spain and Portugal over 10 years. According to the different methods used and PV plants analyzed, excluding PV plants with problems, a range of degradation rates between 0.01 and 0.47%/year has been found. The overall average value observed is 0.27%/year. The findings of this work have also revealed the great importance of good operation and maintenance practices in order to keep overall low degradation rates.