Solar star projects SAM version 2017.9.5 PVwats version 5 model case study & validation

Abstract

Very Large Photovoltaic Solar Power Plants (VLPVPPs) are a major revolutionary step up not only for economies of scale, but also for %100 renewable power Global Grid. Their designs and investments should be performed in an environmentally friendly, fair, open to very large to small private investors, transparent and reducing relative income inequality approaches. Their investments will easily be possible with new investment models (%0 interest load, %100 private equity, open investment for ordinary people, project developers, private companies etc. with a constraint-based shareholder structuring). These revolutionary investment models will play an important and game changing role. VLPVPPs’ early engineering and investment analysis can be performed on many software. Therefore, validation and verification efforts of those software in advance on the operational PVPPs are essential. This research study aims to present a validation and verification accomplishment of the Solar Star Projects (597 MW_AC, 747,3 MW_DC) (Solar Star I: 318 MW_AC, 397,8 MW_DC & Solar Star II: 279 MW_AC, 349,5 MW_DC) in Antelope Valley near Rosamond, Kern and Los Angeles counties, California, United States with the PVWatts Version 5 model of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) System Advisor Model (SAM) Version 2017.9.5. The location and resource, system design data and information of the Solar Star Projects (I & II) are presented based on open source information and personal communications. The Solar Star Projects SAM software models' are simulated on a personal computer (PC) (Windows 10 Pro, Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 650 @ 3.20 GHZ, 6,00 GB RAM) with the internet connection. The results of eight simple simulations, one parametric simulation and one stochastic simulation are compared with the actual generation data by help of some statistical performance measures (e.g. annual model/actual: 100,0%, annual model/actual: 100,1%, absolute maximum forecast error 39.276 MWh, mean absolute error 11.554 MWh, geometric mean absolute error 8.924 MWh, mean square error 2.662.330.229 MWh, root mean square error 51.597 MWh).

Keywords

• SAM,System Advisor Model,Solar Star Projects,Very Large Photovoltaic Solar Power Plants

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