How Alinea Solar reduced the lifetime yield loss of their client's PV plant by 68% using Sitemark

At a glance

• Alinea Solar’s client wants to build a 1.1MW solar plant – EPC claims the site is more or less flat.
• The drone survey shows a significantly different topography and resulted in a potential lifetime yield loss of €111,155.
• Fast redesign of the plant mitigated the issue and reduced the calculated lifetime yield loss by 68%.

Problem

Alinea Solar’s client faced a severe setback in PV performance when a detailed topography of the 1.1 MW PV plant they were planning showed a slope of 40 meters difference and surrounding mountains.

According to the EPC, the site was “more or less flat”, and the yield would be approx. 1771 MWh/year. But in reality, when updating the original design with the true topography, the yield dropped to 1670 MWh/year.

Fig 1. Initial flat design provided by the EPC

Fig 2. Initial design updated with drone topography

Their client was looking at a loss of €111,155 over the lifetime of the plant.

Fig 3. The difference in yield between the initial design on a flat surface and the initial design on topography.

Alinea Solar turned to Sitemark to help their client mitigate the issue and reduce the calculated lifetime loss of the PV plant.

Solution

Sitemark’s drone-based digital solution allowed Alinea Solar to

• Fly the site and upload the data to the Sitemark Fuse Platform
• Obtain a detailed topography to simulate different designs in PVsyst
• Save time and money by not having to send a surveyor on-site to obtain the topography

Fig 4. The expected electrical loss based on the initial flat design

Fig 5. The real electrical loss based on the updated design with the real topography

Results

Using Sitemark’s solution and integration with PVsyst, they were able to design a site within 1 week – by deviating the panels a little bit from the south, and changing the pitch, shadowing was reduced – and increasing the performance to 1745MWh/year. This significantly reduced the lifetime loss to € 35,522 instead of €111,155.

Fig 6. The improved design

Fig 7. The improved design resulted in increasing the yield to 1745 MWh/year

”The Sitemark solution enabled us to create a design that reduced the lifetime yield loss of the PV plant by 68%" - Germán Pinar SanzTechnical Director

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