Carrisa Plains photovoltaic power plant 1984-7 performance

Author

Sumner, D.D. ; Whitaker, C.M. ; Schlueter, L.E.

fYear

1988

fDate

1988

Firstpage

1289

Abstract

Four years of performance data and one year of operation and maintenance (O&M) data from ARCO Solar´s Carrisa Plains PV plant are evaluated. The plant consists of 113968 ARCO Solar M52 modules mounted on 799 two-axis trackers. The inverters operate at 480 VAC which is stepped up to 12 kVAC and then to PG&Es 115 kV transmission voltage. The data show the plant to be a very reliable energy producer well matched to PG&E´s peak load requirements. System efficiency has been reduced by approximately 20% due to thermal oxidation of ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) caused by increased operating temperature in mirror-enhanced modules. Laboratory data indicate that this behavior may be reversible at normal module temperatures. Additionally, economic conditions do not favor mirror enhancement, thus reducing concern over degradation caused by its incorporation. O&M results show that, even for a prototype facility, very little human intervention is required.

Keywords

solar power stations; 115 kV; 12 kV; 480 V; ARCO Solar M52 modules; Carrisa Plains photovoltaic power plant; ethylene vinyl acetate; inverters; maintenance; mirror-enhanced modules; operation; performance; thermal oxidation; Inverters; Laboratories; Mirrors; Oxidation; Photovoltaic systems; Power generation; Power generation economics; Solar power generation; Temperature; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 1988., Conference Record of the Twentieth IEEE

Conference_Location

Las Vegas, NV, USA

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.1988.105912

Filename

105912