High-power irrigation systems fed through the electrical grid or diesel generators are giving way to high-power photovoltaic (PV) systems that reduce the cost of energy by up to 80%. This is a new technology that solves the problems arising from the variability of PV power caused by the passage of cloud but for which the expected performance data is unknown. However, the adequacy of the performance of these systems to the expectations established in the design phase of the projects is critical to maintain the confidence of the irrigation communities and the technical advisors of the financial institutions.
In these systems there are different factors external to the quality of the PV system that influence the performance indexes and are related to the characteristics of the PV irrigation system, intrinsic to its design, to the irrigation period in which the system is activated and to other circumstances such as the irrigator’s behavior or the different rainfall over time. Taking them into account allows classifying PR losses in different indexes: PRPV, URIP, URPVIS y UREF.
QPV and the Solar Energy Institute of the Polytechnic University of Madrid have conducted a study and obtained the experimental values of these indices over two years of operation of a 360 kWp PV irrigation system, isolated from the grid and without batteries, as well as the values of the cloud passage resistance index. The results were presented at the CIES 2020 congress and published in its proceedings.
