1
Assessing PV Industry Challenges

In 2017, it was noted in a number of publications that there were ongoing and significant problems with photovoltaic power plants. There had been a number of plant failures, bankruptcies, defaults, and fire sales. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the industry as of early 2024 with some historical notes. The Preemptive Analytic Model (PAM) is introduced as well as the differences between what we call the project delivery model based primarily on cost and the system delivery model based on optimization of the cost and benefits for all stakeholders. Throughout the book, there is an emphasis on establishing success and failure definitions and criteria. This is in part due to the widely varying views held by the industry today.

1.1 Introduction

In this chapter and throughout this book, we use a Socratic method for discussion by pointing out many obvious and not so obvious industry challenges. Among them: are a lack of systems engineering (SE) and Repowering™ planning, product inconsistency, underperformance, insufficient/underfunded Operations and Maintenance (O&M), and a lack of long‐term reliability and availability to mention a few. We address how many of these can be corrected. We ask some pointed and uncomfortably tough questions while critically looking for real solutions while stimulating discussion. Until the industry publicly discusses these positions critically, aggressively, and thoroughly, while proving those assertions correct or incorrect and providing/delivering better solutions, future industry‐wide system performance, output, and fiscal results will remain underwhelming.

It is clear to us, the authors, that with over 60 years of PV development experience history, the long‐term industry resolution of critical photovoltaic (PV) technical issues can be addressed in a more cost‐effective manner. This requires adopting an SE approach while identifying risks to the stakeholders including plant design, component selection challenges, repair, and lost energy. This necessitates greater usage of operational information and failure data to identify, track, and analyze a plant's faults, failures, and service interruptions.

Our Premise:

The least‐cost PV system, with or without energy storage that you can buy today, may in all probability, be the most expensive system you may ever build or own. Therefore, our focus is on the specification and delivery of reliable, available, maintainable, and safe (RAMS) profitable PV infrastructure not based primarily on the least initial cost.

Our Concern:

If we as an industry do not effectively address the real issues of today, we may find ourselves in a decade or so with a substantial number of worldwide PV plants that are underperforming and incapable of meeting the “real energy” requirements necessary, especially when called upon!

Our present PV industry business model and approach are inconsistent. Over the last 30‐plus years, the industry witnessed a litany of project failures, bankruptcies, electrical fires, fire sales, and more. These flawed projects are often the result of poor management judgment and decisions using a least‐cost process. The process comes without sufficient substantiation or rational data, other than assumptions or a sales pitch that promises to minimize the investment costs with a good return in the short term.

1.2 Terminology

As is discussed in Chapters 4–8, terminology and definitions drive understanding the capabilities of PV plants as well as their risks. At the technical level, there is a real/substantive lack of understanding of what reliability, maintainability, and availability terms mean. Of all the terms used in this book, and the industry for that matter, two tend to be consistently misunderstood and incorrectly applied. Capacity and capability have been abused as marketing terms and at the writing of this book, ill‐defined and not applied accurately or effectively in the industry. Based on our research, we provide the following common definitions of capacity and capability.

Capability; noun: the ability to do something

Capacity; noun: the total amount that can be contained or produced

(https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/)

Using these we offer the following:

• Module capacity = The module nameplate power output as tested and certified at standard test conditions (STC) (UL1703/UL 61730 – PV Module Safety Standards Updates: Making the Transition).
• Plant capacity = The sum total of the module nameplate power.
• Plant capability = The plant health, condition, and status at any point in time to provide output power from the plant with the equipment that is available, while accounting for impact of all plant environments, equipment degradation, and failures.
• Performance capacity = The maximum power output of the plant for the equipment that is operational, available, and accounting for all degradation and failures at a specific site and environment (see IEC 61724‐3).

Plant or STC capacity as a metric does not equate to performance or profitability. Capability in and of itself defines a state of the plant's ability to generate power but does not equate to energy production. In other words, the capability of the plant may be above or below what is demanded at any particular time. An example of this would be curtailment.

1.3 Preventive Analytic Maintenance

Preemptive Analytical Maintenance (PAM), Balfour and Morris (2018), is a philosophical and proven PV system engineering process and approach, which is practical in its implementation that includes embedded reliability, availability, maintainability including testability, and system operational safety. It focuses on a system lifecycle planning approach, which addresses plant Repowering™ planning as a “lifecycle” system delivery process. It includes a substantive set of engineering processes and procedures as compared to the presently discussed and practiced repowering approach, which is inadequate to extend system life for the delivery of cost‐effective energy.

PAM is the application of a detailed lifecycle systems specification based on commonly accepted industry‐derived nomenclature and metrics (see Orange Button, the IEC Reliability and Availability Standards IEC TS 63265:2022 and IEC TS 63019:2019, respectively, and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers [IEEE] and Military standards) for new and existing plants based on all stakeholder's wants, needs, and desires. Identifying, defining, and specifying these early in the system delivery design phase, prior to Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) bidding, assure their adherence through the entire PV system delivery process. Doing so delivers plants that express improved performance, energy output, and asset value. This also improves O&M and cost stability over the life of the plant as these costs can be significantly reduced in the contract out years, while effectively optimizing a far more accurate levelized cost of energy (LCOE).

To achieve this in both existing and future PV power plants requires a consistent and continuous approach to performance and failure data collection, curation, analysis, and root cause analysis with clearly defined corrective actions to be taken.

PAM, illustrated in Figure 1.1, provides the framework and capability to deliver accurate operational risk and cost analyses. This approach, based on data acquisition, more than pays for improving the way PV plants are specified, designed, delivered, operated, maintained, and retired (Chapters 5–7). Using the acquired data to further understand the SE/RAMS (Systems Engineering INCOSE‐TP‐2003‐002‐04, 2015, IEC TS 63265:2022 and Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, and Safety) of operating systems provides the foundation for future improvement in lifecycle cost (LCC) (IEC 60300‐3‐3:2017).

There are precedents for this view as you read further.

“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.” John F. Kennedy.

To quote Dr. Richard Feynman after the Challenger space shuttle disaster in 1983, “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.”

Table 1.1 is a summary of the various stakeholder's areas addressed in this book. Of special note is the broad range of users/stakeholders who can benefit from a well‐defined set of practices that we are advocating.

Table 1.2 provides a brief summary of the elements of the book and the level of technology familiarity or difficulty of each chapter. It should be noted that regardless of the level of technical expertise, each chapter contains a broad range of material, which is understandable and beneficial to all readers. PAM as a model is foundational to all stakeholders in the PV industry. It is our goal to provide all readers...