EF Solare Italia wants to be the promoter of technical know-how’s development in the PV market.
MODERNIZATION TO VALORIZE THE ITALIAN PHOTOVOLTAIC PLANTS
EF Solare Italia, in cooperation with the Energy & Strategy Group of Politecnico di Milano, has organized, on 14th June 2018, a private event in its Headquarter to discuss with the market experts and operators, the optimizing of the exiting Italian photovoltaic plants to reach the challenging objectives brought up by National Energy Strategy 2017.
An occasion to match and share business experiences between operators working along the whole supply chain. This has been the spirit that animated the round table “Valorizing the Italian photovoltaic plants: issues faced and possible solutions”.
The new National Energy Strategy ask the PV segment to triple its production by 2030 but, as shown by an Althesys research presented in the same week, the existing Italian PV park suffer from an annual decrease of production of 2.2%, much more than expected.
The round table was open by Damiano Cavallaro, project manager in the Energy & Strategy Group of Politecnico di Milano, who provided a clear picture of the PV market in Italy and stressed that, according to the Group’s projections, by revamping the plants it would be possible to reach 1 GW of additional power in three years. Proving the benefits of this kind of technical interventions, Cavallaro showed the results of a survey according to which 73% of the interviewed experienced an improvement of productivity after revamping interventions.
Next was Mauro Moroni, CEO of Moroni & Partners, who explained why it is convenient, also from a monetary point of view, to make interventions on the plants in the next three years: given that the interventions on the solar modules takes nine years to repay themselves, and given that the remaining time for incentives will not last longer than thirteen years, after the next three years it will be more costly to do this kind of investment. Moroni then brought some real case histories of revamping that showed the importance of relying of professionals to be in line with the technical and legal requirements.
Stephan Padlewski, Market leader EMEA of DuPont Photovoltaic Solutions, presented an analysis of one of the main issues experienced lately on the modules: the backsheet issue. He showed the conditions that accelerates this process and the main stress tests to evaluate the degradation level. He then stressed the importance of evaluating the investments in revamping on a productivity level, not a generation power one.
The last speech was the one of Sara Di Mario, COO of EF Solare Italia, who showed EF’s working plans aimed at optimizing Operations’ activities and services: digitalization, supply technical-commercial strategies, maintenance plans and KPIs for an efficient managing of O&M, revamping, management of RAEE components. She brought some real examples of issues experienced on modules and inverters and the solutions that EF is implementing. Among these, the relevant substitution of 1 MW implemented in 2016 on two inverters, which generated a 15% increase in the total performance of the plant. Di Mario also provided some anticipations regarding the next interventions, explaining that EF has planned to revamp an inverter for 6 MW in 2018 and 50MW in 2019, plus an eventual refurbishment of additional 30 MW.
The round table was followed by a discussion, hosted by Carlo Maciocco, a journalist from Quotidiano Energia, in which both the speakers and the audience took part.
This event is a manifestation of the commitment of EF Solare Italia to be a sponsor of the sustainable energy culture and a promoter of development and propagation of technical know-how in the PV market.