Assessment of Reliability and Availability of a Photovoltaic Power Plant

The usage of renewable energies all over the world is on the rise. In renewable energy category, solar energy has received the most attention from governments and the general public due to its easy access and utilizing at different scales. Moreover, the efficiency of a photovoltaic (PV) power plant has been increased and the costs of components in a PV system have been decreased due to significant progress in PV power plant technology. However, for gaining the guaranteed generating power either for grid or domestic consumptions and the expected profit, it is necessary for a PV power plant to operate on a reliable scheme. Hence, it is essential to know the reliability and availability values of solar power plants in order to know the conditions of solar power plants at the time of production and also to predict future production. In this paper, the reliability and availability values for a PV power plant under different conditions are calculated by analytical and simulation methods. Also the impact of power generating time on predetermined and undesired conditions are studied. To ensure the accuracy of the calculations, two different approaches (Markov and Monte Carlo techniques) are used in this paper. All the calculations are done in MATLAB and will confirm the following statements.

Keywords:

Solar Power Plant , Reliability , Availability , Markov , Monte Carlo