EVALUATION AND ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF 2MW SOLAR PV FARM IN MELAKA

Photovoltaic (PV) plants in the world are presently subjected to the growing importance driven by the search for alternative resources of traditional fossil fuel. The development of photovoltaic energy in the last decade has brought to light the prediction of PV module performance under real outdoor operating condition. This paper presents a case study of installing 2MW solar power plant in Melaka. The case study discusses the key factors that could influence the power generation output of a solar plant, namely the environmental factors and the system factors. The environmental factors comprise of the effect from sun irradiance and temperature, whereas the system factors comprise of the effects of inverter and transformer efficiency, cable losses, dirt impact, mismatch and shading effect and degradation. The effects of the environmental factors on solar power plant were studied based on the historical meteorological data retrieved from the commercially available database, Meteonorm. In addition, economic viability was also analysed based on the system performance analysis. The key findings of the study suggest that despite the reduced power generation output caused by the environmental and system factors, it is still economically feasible to invest into the development of 2MW solar farm in Melaka under the current Feed-in Tariff scheme