PV Measures Up for Fleet Duty : Data from a Tennessee Plant Are Used to Illustrate Metrics That Characterize Plant Performance

Author

Trueblood, C. ; Coley, S. ; Key, T. ; Rogers, L. ; Ellis, Abraham ; Hansen, Charles ; Philpot, E.

Author_Institution

EPRI, Knoxville, TN, USA

Volume

11

Issue

2

fYear

2013

fDate

March-April 2013

Firstpage

33

Lastpage

44

Abstract

Conventional power plant performance metrics are designed for dispatchable generation. These can be difficult to apply to variable generators such as wind and solar power. This article describes additional metrics that can be applied to photovoltaic (PV ) power plants and illustrates these metrics using measured data collected from a 1-MW PV plant in Tennessee over a one-year period. The article persuades that new metrics will be needed to measure and effectively employ PV for duty in a traditional generation fleet.

Keywords

photovoltaic power systems; PV measures; PV power plant performance metrics; Tennessee plant; fleet duty; photovoltaic power plants; power 1 MW; solar power; variable generators; wind power; Generators; Industrial plants; Performance evaluation; Power generation; Power system reliability; Renewable energy resources; Solar energy; Solar power generation;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Power and Energy Magazine, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1540-7977

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/MPE.2012.2234405

Filename

6466542