PERFORMANCE OF SOLAR POWER PLANTS-CERC though dated in 2011 is an insightful document detailed all the facets of solar that one needs to understand from high level view.

The table of contents is below and is recommended reading for those who want to understand solar better

1.0Introduction …………………………………………………………………… 6
1.1 Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) ………………………….. 6
1.2 Energy Security………………………………………………………………………….. 7
1.3 Role of Central and State Governments …………………………………………….. 7
2.0 Objectives of the report ………………………………………………………………….. 7
3.0 Methodology ……………………………………………………………………………….. 8
4.0 Technology for Solar Power Plants …………………………………………………. 9
4.1 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) technologies …………………………………………………. 9
4.2 Solar Thermal(CSP) technology ……………………………………………………… 10
5.0 Performance of Solar Power Plants ………………………………………………… 12
5.1 Radiation ………………………………………………………………………………. 13
5.1.1 Solar radiation basics and definition ……………………………………. 15
5.1.2 Measurement of Solar radiation …………………………………………….. 15
5.1.3 Sources of Solar radiation data …………………………………………………… 16
5.2 Losses in PV Solar systems ……………………………………………………… 19
5.3 Solar Plant design ……………………………………………………………………….. 21
5.4 Long term reliability ………………………………………………………………. 24
6.0 Module Degradation ………………………………………………………………….. 25
6.1 Background ………………………………………………………………………………. 25
6.2 Causes of degradation ……………………………………………………………….. 26
6.3 Case studies on degradation ………………………………………………………… 29
7.0 Estimation of CUF for Solar Power Plants ……………………………… 33
8.0 Performance of Operational Solar Power Plants ……………………………… 38
9.0 Conclusions and recommendations ………………………………………….. 41
References …………………………………………………………………………………….. 42

Figure 1: Solar Thermal Technologies. ……………………………………………….. 11
Figure 2: Solar energy fundamentals and modelling techniques: atmosphere, environment,
climate change and renewable energy …………………………………… 14
Figure 3: List of radiation stations installed by IMD. Source: IMD website……… 16
Figure 4: Solar radiation zones as per TERI based on IMD database………….. 19
Figure 5: MPPT Maximum Power point tracking. ……………………………… 21
Figure 6: Solar Module charactersics at different Insolation level ……………. 22
Figure 7: Degradation data …………………………………………………………………. 31
Table 8: Module reliability………………………………………………….33
Figure 7: Radiation at different tilt angles …………………………………….. 23
Figure 8: Temerature coefficient for crystalline solar cells …………………… 24