PERFORMANCE CONTROL FOR GRID CONNECTED PV-SYSTEMS

A large number of grid connected photovoltaic (PV) systems is in operation in Europe today and a continuous increase of the installed capacity can be observed. As could be expected, the systems are subject to faults that decrease the performance (i.e. the kWh/kWp yield) of the systems. This results in financial losses for the operators, especially in countries with rate based incentive schemes. Thus a continuous performance control of the systems is necessary. For this purpose different schemes are proposed - all having to find a compromise between precision and additional costs. One of these schemes is the PVSAT-procedure, which is developed within an EU-funded project. It is characterized by the replacement of the on-site irradiance measurements by satellite derived data and the application of procedures to identify possible causes of the performance losses. The latter is intended to ease the maintenance work.