PV system maintenance
Por Nuno Silva
In recent years, energy consumption increase led to the growth of photovoltaic installations, with the goal to help industries and individuals to minimize the impact of successive price rise associated with energy consumption. Thus arises the need to ensure the correct PV system maintenance to guarantee the best results in terms of performance and installation durability.
Compared with other energy generating equipment, PV installations are simpler and have lower maintenance costs. Maintenance interventions, if done in a timely manner, may increase PV plants productivity and reduce maintenance and repair costs. High-quality operation and maintenance (O&M) is one of the main ways to ensure the efficient operation of the solar plant.
The Benefits of Monitoring and Maintenance
After PV plant commissioning, monitoring is required to evaluate its condition and eliminate malfunctions. This monitoring process allows to detect faults, as well as situations that could damage the PV system operation. The measured indicators are voltage and current, the amount of electricity generated, and power consumption.
These metrics allow to determine whether the plant is stable or if it requires further adjustments. Moreover, in case of a detected malfunction, it is possible to remotely change the settings, as well as update the equipment’s software.
Whenever the photovoltaic system is not producing the expected power or the production levels do not match the forecast settled in the beggining of the project, a site inspection will be performed to prevent the problem from affecting energy production.
The 3 major benefits of PV system maintenance
– Increase installation’s production yields
– Increase equipment’s lifetime
– Correct small defects before the system’s harmed
Maintenance of Photovoltaic Plants with EnergyCon:
Maintenance interventions on solar panels must be carried out exclusively by qualified and properly equipped technicians, to prevent the risk of electrocution and fatal accidents.
At EnergyCon, this service includes regular inspection and (unscheduled) support, which involves the intervention of an emergency team, diagnostics and repair work, such as:
– Checking the condition of cables and equipment
– Thermal inspection of junction boxes
– Measurement of insulation resistance
– Thermal inspection of PV modules
– Visual inspection of the installation
– Analysis of defects, deficiencies and system failures
– Thermographic examination for hot spots verification
– Power measurement of individual modules or respective strings
– Installation performance comparison
– Maintenance documentation with report and improvement suggestions/corrections.
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