Techno-economic Analysis of a Utility Scale Photovoltaic Plant

The solar irradiance of Nepal is very much suitable for solar technology application. About 58 Mega Watt peak of utility scale photovoltaic potential is indicated from the tentative study at Nepal Electricity Authority owned hydropower plant areas at central region. It has also presented the techno-economic analysis of a one Mega Watt peak utility scale photovoltaic plant near Trishuli hydropower plant at latitude 27°55'27.9"N and longitude 85°8'27.6"E with a total area of 10897 square meter. Designed utility scale plant consists of 3600 numbers of 280 Watt peak panel inclined at 30 º facing south with a total of 180 strings, 20 modules per string, two 500 kW central inverter, one 1250 kVA three phase three winding transformer,12 smart combiner box with string monitoring unit and appropriate cables, protection devices and controlling station. Simulation of such utility scale plant for forecasting it's output is done using PVSYST with Meteorological data from Meteonorm. The analysis shows the plants energy output would be 1768 MWh/year with 77.3% performance ratio, specific yield 1754 kWh/kWp/year and normalized production 4.81 kWh/kWp/day.