Design and Sizing of Decentralized Grid-Connected Solar Power Plant

Power demand of the country is mostly met through conventional plant which generates bulk amount of power centrally. Power generation using photovoltaic (PV) technology is very promising in terms of power generation ranging from kWs to MWs and helps to great extent increasing the installed capacity and can help electric utility companies in meeting increasing load demand along with minimizing distribution losses. The concept of grid-connected solar PV system is mounted on vacant unutilized area of commercial buildings; small-scale industry rooftops are likely to add to generation capacity and thus meet renewables portfolio standard targets of utility. This paper analyzes and designs a PV array and defines inverter sizes for a grid-connected PV system. The proposed site selected is Zirakpur (Punjab) with latitude 30.40° N and longitude 76.50° E. Various inputs like peak power, module voltage, global irradiance and tilt angle are given, and a detailed report on the losses of PV array as well as the inverter are obtained using software PVsyst.