"What is solar fencing?"
A Quick Guide
So, you made the smart decision of installing a solar PV system for your house/business, now what? Contrary to what most PV contractors advise, there will be some maintenance & monitoring required, which if not done properly might lead to a reduction of as much as 30% in the production of electricity.
I came across a brilliant piece of work done by PI Berlin, a PV technical advisory company, in collaboration with MNRE, German Corporation for International Cooperation & few other institutions. The company did site reviews of 20 Roof Top PV systems in India to “quantify the issues leading to sub-optimal performance and suggest specific measures along with cost benefit analysis to increase their performance”
What were the key findings?
- The most commonly occurring performance killers, in decreasing order of occurrence, were: soiling (dust accumulation), cell cracks, near shading & Potential Induced Degradation (caused due to electrical potential difference b/w the PV cell & other parts of the panel)
- If the above performance killers were sorted according to the amount of performance reduction they contribute, then this will be the order: PID, Soiling, Near shading & Deviation from South. Please see the below chart for this view
I further classified these causes into what stage of implementation they can be identified:
- Procurement – these issues can be avoided by purchasing good quality panels that are PID resistant. We at Ibex Solar install only such high quality panels with necessary certifications
- Design – Issues such as near shading, alignment with true south, etc can be resolved by designing the PV system correctly. Our engineers at Ibex Solar have sufficient experience with designing such systems
- Maintenance – besides regular cleaning of the panels, we also need to check if all the electric connections & components are working correctly. In this regard Ibex Solar will provide free maintenance for first 2 years