Solarletter #7_EN - Revamping and the magic of getting a second life
Also: Machines have start on the largest agrivoltaic project in Germany, Largest floating solar installation in Europe has begun construction and Trina Solar announces the production of 700 W modules.
Please note that text below has been translated from the spanish version by using AI
Hello everyone and welcome back to Solarletter. My name is Imanol Matanza, and I aim to share with you the latest news, technological advancements, and trends in the field of photovoltaic energy. Through Solarletter, I hope to provide you with valuable information, market analysis, state-of-the-art updates, and practical tips that will help you stay informed about the latest developments in the photovoltaic industry.
I am always open to suggestions, questions, and comments, so please feel free to contact me. If you like it, don't hesitate to subscribe and share!
Four weeks have passed since the last edition of Solarletter. At the beginning, I aimed to release an edition every two weeks, but work piles up, and the lack of time does not allow me to keep up with the pace. Nonetheless, I am very pleased that construction of my first project started last week. Next week, a second one begins in parallel... so I hope they will not steal too much of my time and will allow me to continue bringing you a summary of interesting news.
Now, let's go with the news for this week!
Revamping and the magic of getting a second life
Today I bring you a news article from La Información that has really caught my attention, not because I have learned something new, but because it is something that has affected me personally. In it, they talk about the well-known "Revamping" and how to give a fresh look to the installation to extend/improve its useful life.
Here I would like to make a brief stop to explain briefly what a "Revamping" consists of and how to differentiate it from a "Repowering," because they are often interchanged, leading to confusion.
As I understand it (and I believe many in the industry do too), "Revamping" is nothing more than the replacement of old equipment with modern equipment, while maintaining the initial peak power (i.e., keeping the modules). On the other hand, in a "Repowering," the aim is to replace old modules with new ones of higher power and efficiency, so that the peak power can be increased.
Antonio Martos Villar mentions that BayWa r.e. has carried out its first Revamping project in Spain, where photovoltaic installations installed in the early 2000s are starting to reach the end of their useful life. The project was carried out at "El Peral II" in Albacete, with a capacity of 2.18 MWp and built in 2008. The article does not specify whether these are central inverters or not, but Antonio says:
"They have replaced half of the 20 modules with other 'string' type inverters, resulting in an increase in efficiency by percentage points (from 95% to 99%)."
Given that this is such an old installation, I imagine they are "central inverters" of around 80 to 100 kW (AC), and note that I write it in quotation marks because what used to be central inverters could be considered string inverters today.
And now, I will leave you with the reason why this news has struck a chord with me. A video in which I show you a "small" revamping project where we replaced 19 old inverters with 5 new ones. Although it may seem simple, there are several difficulties to consider, such as communication and control of the inverters, the DC part, distribution boards, etc.
But I warn you in advance, no criticism about the video editing will be accepted :P, marketing is still a pending task (the phone was falling and stopping recording at times...).
Probably in some upcoming edition, I will go deeper into the technical and economic details of these types of projects. So do not forget to subscribe if you are not already ;)
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Machines have start on the largest agrivoltaic project in Germany
Vatenfall has begun construction on what will be Germany's largest agrivoltaic installation. If this is the first time you have come across this term, here is a brief explanation: it is a technology that aims to combine electricity production with agricultural use. To achieve this, photovoltaic modules are elevated to a height that allows the passage of tractors and agricultural machinery.
Located in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the project will have a total capacity of 79 MWp and will cover an area of 93 hectares. It will be carried out without the need for government subsidies as Vattenfall has signed a PPA with a subsidiary of Telekom AG. This ensures that enough energy will be produced to power 2,500 mobile phone towers.
Vattenfall's strategy is to use different structure systems with various types of crops to test and gain experience for future projects. In Almere, the Netherlands, they already had a 700 kWp pilot project.
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Largest floating solar installation in Europe has begun construction
Q Energy is commencing the construction of what will be Europe's largest photovoltaic installation. After improvements to its initial design with 66 MWp, "Les Ilots Blandin" will now have a capacity of 74.3 MWp and will be located in an old quarry in the Haute-Marne region in northeastern France.
The construction will last for 18 months and cover an area of 127 hectares. It will consist of a total of 134,649 modules, divided into 6 blocks anchored to the bottom of artificial lakes and on a floating structure manufactured in France.
To give you an idea of its dimensions, here is a ranking (as of January 2022) of the world's largest grid-connected floating installations by capacity:
Dezhou Dingzhuang, China, 320 MWp
Three Gorges New Energy, China, 150 MWp
CECEP, China, 70 MWp
Sembcorp, Singapore, 60 MWp
Sirindhorn Dam, Thailand, 45 MWp
It is undoubtedly challenging to compete with China in the photovoltaic sector. In Europe, as far as I could find, the largest floating installation is in Grafenwörth, Austria, with a total capacity of 24.5 MWp, constructed by BayWa r.e.
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Trina Solar announces the production of 700 W modules
One of the major photovoltaic module manufacturers has announced the mass production of its Vertex N 700W units. Trina Solar becomes the first to take the step in manufacturing TOPCon (Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact) modules that surpass these power figures.
(For those who are reading this term for the first time, I will leave you an interesting link here that explains its advantages.)
With 210 mm n-type wafers, they ensure they can achieve an efficiency of 25.8%. Trina aims to have a wafer production capacity of 75 GW by the end of the year. The advantages of this technology include improved performance in low-temperature and low-irradiance conditions.
The decision was made after testing them at a 45.5 MWp desalination plant in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, and a 500 MWp plant in Xinghai, China.
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Edition´s microtip curiosity
This time I do not bring a tip, but rather an interesting fact you may not be aware of. Have you ever heard of solar trackers? Most likely, but do you know what backtracking is? For those who are hearing this term for the first time, it is a feature in tracker controllers to prevent shading between rows. In other words, instead of all trackers having the same tilt, each one operates independently based on the position of the sun and the terrain to avoid casting shadows between rows.
If you are still curious, here is a post by Sergio Relloso where you can see a video of backtracking in action, designed by Sener, at an operating solar plant.
That concludes the edition. I hope you enjoyed and it made your coffee break, public transportation ride, or nap more enjoyable. If you have any suggestions, recommendations, or comments, feel free to reply to this email.
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Sunny Regards!