Expansion of an existing 3 MW photovoltaic power plant without exceeding a limited power

Abstract

The photovoltaic power plants have a big issue on their production profile; the parabolic shape of their daily power output affects and obliges to oversize in many cases the surround-ing grid. However, the orientation and tilting of the photovoltaic modules allow slightly chang-ing or moving their production. The following report shows an existing 3 MWp photovoltaic power plant built in an old military base with bunkerswhere the modules have a South orien-tation and where the power can be increased. It exist an accorded maximum power injection of 2,900 kW with the grid operator. Nonetheless, the degradation during the years of the cur-rent modules and the time when the peak power occurs, allow adding more photovoltaic modules by varying their orientation and tilting on the surface of the bunkers. With this pur-pose a simulation program was used to analyze different building configurations and how the production profiles change depending on the tilting and orientation. Different results have been obtained where the importance of the sun path was demonstrated. Moreover, an extra addition of around 1,000 modules (370 kW) can be performed. Finally, a short economic ap-proach was realized in order to prove the feasibility of the project.