Optimizing Solar PV Generation and Lowering O&M Costs to Meet Energy Transition Demands

The energy transition is in full force, as more and more energy firms invest in renewable generation assets for the long term. This is, in part, because technology is catching up to demand. In fact, 84% of global power demand can be met with renewable energy. While 24% of demand can be met by wind (20% onshore and 4% offshore), a huge portion (60%) can be fulfilled by solar photovoltaics (Solar PV).

To effectively use Solar PV to meet energy transition demands, businesses need to ask themselves:

1. Should I monitor and maintain my solar assets similar to my fossil fuel assets? If not, how should it be done differently?
    
2. What critical assets need monitoring, and how do I know when issues justify dispatching a tech?
    
3. Can I benchmark the performance of multiple sites despite different configurations, health, and weather conditions?
    
4. What are my areas of greatest generation loss – and what can I do about it?
    
5. How well is my team optimizing site and fleet generation?

In July 2023, GE Digital introduced Solar Accelerators, a package of solar-specific analytics, visualizations, and insights to improve O&M strategies. Using the latest machine learning techniques, automated alerts, and health monitoring, they could be the key to lowering downtime, reducing costs, and increasing ROI across your plant.

The volume of solar assets being deployed today, coupled with varying fault types, creates more complexity for operators who strive to achieve optimal generation from their sites.

Take, for instance, a 10MW solar plant spread across a 400-acre site (see below). The sheer number of solar assets presents a challenge when identifying the source of degradation, its impact, and the appropriate, cost-effective level of monitoring for that asset. Maintaining a site based on prescribed inspection and replacement intervals leaves operators exposed to long-lasting, off-cycle maintenance issues that could be limiting generation. Other times, operators may actually experience the opposite effect — preoccupation with non-consequential maintenance findings that demand tech resources without improving the site performance.

Fault types vary over the lifecycle of a plant, adding further risk to traditional time-based maintenance strategies. Operators need near-real-time, condition-based asset information to effectively identify and address:

• Shading issues at commissioning
• Operational faults during production
• Repeat issues that could lead to a warranty claim

With a time-based maintenance approach, many of these faults go unnoticed, silently causing underperformance until the next scheduled maintenance interval, affecting plant productivity, efficiency, and, ultimately, profitability.

Many organizations use GE Digital’s industry-leading Asset Performance Management (APM) applications as an integrated enterprise solution for mixed-fuel fleets. GE Digital’s Accelerators portfolio gives operators a means to quicken their time-to-value by dramatically reducing the time and resources needed to build custom processes and asset configurations.

For plants with solar assets, Solar Accelerators, a solar asset performance management software, provides powerful, out-of-the-box analytics, visualizations, and insights to improve solar O&M.

Designed for distributed generation use cases, these Solar Accelerators ensure your solar assets are performing at their best with minimal risk while facilitating an optimal maintenance strategy that maintains the profitability of your investment.

1. Visualize asset hierarchy & health: Contextualize and prioritize asset investigation based on hierarchy, health, and potential generation impact.

2. Integrate with field work management: Notify teams of potential issues, then organize an investigation, dispatch a tech, and document the work order all in one system.

3. Improve maintenance strategies: Model production losses based on cause, events, and expected vs actual production, so that site teams can improve their maintenance strategies.

As the energy transition continues to gain momentum, the energy sector will likely need more solutions to monitor the rapidly growing solar PV installed capacity. Owing to its competitively low cost, operators continue to expand their solar PV fleets and look for out-of-the-box solutions that help minimize downtime, lower costs, and maximize ROI.

With Solar Accelerators, operators can hasten their time-to-value with pre-packaged analytics and visualizations that help increase yield, reduce inverter downtime, and lower O&M costs by optimizing maintenance.