ASSESSMENT ON PERFORMANCE OF DIFFERENT STAND-ALONE SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC BASEDPOWER PLANTS (MINI-GRID) IN SUNDERBANS AND ITS CO-RELATION WITH THESOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE REGIONS

摘要

Sunderbans is a part of the vast delta of the river Ganga, an area characterized by mangrove swamps and islands interwoven by a network of small rivers, waterways, creeks and tracts. The remote villages and hamlets of Sunderbans suffer from chronic shortage of energy due to non-availability of grid power. Renewable energy is considered to be the right choice for providing clean energy to these remote settlements. Village level mini-grids based on different renewable energy technology were used for supplying electricity for domestic and commercial application. In 1996, the first 26 kWp solar PV based power plant was installed in Kamalpur village of Sunderbans1. Total12 solar PV based power plants (different size) have already been installed in Sunderbans in subsequent years. Out of12 power plants, 9 are stand-alone solar PV based power plants and 3 are PV-wind hybrid systems. The papersummarizes the significant result drawn from the performance assessment of 9 stand-alone power plants. The paperalso discusses how the simple technology customization influences the overall performance of the system. The corelationbetween economic development of the region with the performance enhancement of the system has also beenstudied. Performance assessment has been done on the basis of analyzing the performance indicators and on fieldobservations. The operational data of various power plants has been collected and is considered as a tool for PVsystem performance analysis. The performance assessment has revealed that the operational performance is not onlydepending on the component efficiency but also on system design, load pattern, monitoring arrangements in the field.