Long-term performance of Casaccia plant

A 100 kW plant has been installed on the shelters of ENEA Casaccia Center parking lot in 1991, with the aim to verify the possibility of exploiting already existing structures also ensuring a low visual impact and to test the low-voltage grid interconnection. The operational data collected in the period 1992-2002 have confirmed a final yield of about 2.5 h/d and a performance ratio of about 0.65. In the same period about 42 outage events have been recorded, corresponding to an average unavailability of 12.5%. Good performances have been obtained during the years 1999 and 2001, when the plant has been in service almost 100% of the time. On the whole, after 11 years of operation, the plant is nice looking and working properly, while measurement campaigns have confirmed only a lightly power degradation of the array, according to the expectations.