Project Brief

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of  India, has come out with a target of 100 GW solar capacity addition by 2022, of which  60GW comprises utility scale power projects, 40GW rooftop installations, and an extra  2GW off-grid power plants. Since the quantum of projects envisaged is large, the probability  of increased problems arising due to O&M issues could also be high. Further, with India  experiencing diverse climatic conditions in different regions, the performance of solar PV plants tends  to vary in accordance to the climatic variations. With the Indian PV industry gaining maturity and  endeavoring to meet the 100GW target, the need for enhancing O&M and performance evaluation has become  a focal point of attention.

The World Institute of Sustainable Energy (WISE), Pune, was awarded a project under PEER-Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research programme with the support of the United States Agency for International Development(USAID),for  "Developing Performance Evaluation and O&M strategy for the Indian Solar Sector", which is intended to project the need for  predictive maintenance and performance evaluation in a strategic manner as opposed to conventional maintenance practices, as  well as to develop an implementation strategy.

 The main objectives of the project are,

• Development of performance evaluation strategy by considering all above factors

• Development of standard O&M methods

• Capacity building of government and privet stake holders for the long term implementation of the strategies

• Design policy recommendations based on the project outcomes

• Support Government of India to achieve 2022 solar target