30 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE WITH A 10 KW PV PLANT

Resumo

This paper reports the results obtained in 30 years of measurements, testing and monitoring of a PV TISO 10 kW plant installed at SUPSI in Southern Switzerland. The plant was connected to the grid in May 1982, the first in Europe. The system operated for 27 years with virtually no interruptions; the plant underwent configuration changes on only a few occasions, mainly because of inverter breakdowns. Due to a change in location at the end of 2008, the the system began to be disassembled, and 18 months later the plant was reinstalled in a new configuration on a different roof. Between 1982 and 2010 the IV curves of 18 selected modules were measured regularly. Performance measurement, visual inspection and insulation testing was performed on all modules of the plant in 2001 and 2009/2010. The average degradation of all modules of the plant over the 28 years is 0.38 %/year. In the first period (1982-2001), the degradation was 0.27%/year and in the second period (2001-2009) 0.64% / year. The performance ratio of the system decreased by about 20% in the 27 years of operation, and increased 10% after maintenance and reinstallation of the plant.