International collaboration framework for the calculation of performance loss rates: Data quality, benchmarks, and trends (towards a uniform methodology)

Sascha Lindig*, David Moser, Alan J. Curran, Kunal Rath, Arash Khalilnejad, Roger H. French, Magnus Herz, Björn Müller, George Makrides, George Georghiou, Andreas Livera, Mauricio Richter, Julián Ascencio-Vásquez, Mike van Iseghem, Mohammed Meftah, Dirk Jordan, Chris Deline, Wilfried van Sark, Joshua S. Stein, Marios TheristisBennet Meyers, Franz Baumgartner, Wei Luo

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

The IEA PVPS Task 13 group, experts who focus on photovoltaic performance, operation, and reliability from several leading R&D centers, universities, and industrial companies, is developing a framework for the calculation of performance loss rates of a large number of commercial and research photovoltaic (PV) power plants and their related weather data coming across various climatic zones. The general steps to calculate the performance loss rate are (i) input data cleaning and grading; (ii) data filtering; (iii) performance metric selection, corrections, and aggregation; and finally, (iv) application of a statistical modeling method to determine the performance loss rate value. In this study, several high-quality power and irradiance datasets have been shared, and the participants of the study were asked to calculate the performance loss rate of each individual system using their preferred methodologies. The data are used for benchmarking activities and to define capabilities and uncertainties of all the various methods. The combination of data filtering, metrics (performance ratio or power based), and statistical modeling methods are benchmarked in terms of (i) their deviation from the average value and (ii) their uncertainty, standard error, and confidence intervals. It was observed that careful data filtering is an essential foundation for reliable performance loss rate calculations. Furthermore, the selection of the calculation steps filter/metric/statistical method is highly dependent on one another, and the steps should not be assessed individually.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)573-602
JournalProgress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications
Volume29
Issue number6
Early online date2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors kindly acknowledge the data provided by Karl Berger (AIT) for the Pfaffstaetten system and Giosué Maugeri (RSE) for the RSE datasets. The research has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 program under GA. No. 721452‐H2020‐MSCA‐ITN‐2016. This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) under the Solar Energy Technologies Office Award Number 34366. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE‐NA0003525. This paper describes objective technical results and analysis. Any subjective views or opinions that might be expressed in the paper do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Energy or the United States Government. The authors thank the Department of Innovation, Research and University of the Autonomous Province of Bozen/Bolzano for covering the Open Access publication costs.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors. Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Funding

The authors kindly acknowledge the data provided by Karl Berger (AIT) for the Pfaffstaetten system and Giosué Maugeri (RSE) for the RSE datasets. The research has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 program under GA. No. 721452‐H2020‐MSCA‐ITN‐2016. This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) under the Solar Energy Technologies Office Award Number 34366. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE‐NA0003525. This paper describes objective technical results and analysis. Any subjective views or opinions that might be expressed in the paper do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Energy or the United States Government. The authors thank the Department of Innovation, Research and University of the Autonomous Province of Bozen/Bolzano for covering the Open Access publication costs.

Keywords

  • degradation rate
  • performance loss rate
  • PV system degradation
  • PV system performance

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