Concerns During Operation & Maintenance Monitoring Period of Solar Farm in Thailand
(Room Jupiter 7)
02 Sep 15
4:00 PM
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5:30 PM
In the past few years, several of solar farms in Thailand have been operated and several more are under construction phase as the national energy demand of Thailand was forecasted to be increased continuously. To reduce the dependency on the power generation by natural gas and fossil fuel, Thai government provides environmental-friendly policy, support on the electricity production using renewable energy by providing pricing subsidy/ feed-in tariffs in form of Adder through Very Small Power Producer and Small Power Producer program. Construction of one solar farm takes large amount of money, involves a number of processes and requires large low flooding risk land area with high solar radiation. Once the solar farm operates, the amount of energy generated during operation period is the major factor that indicates the financial performance of the solar farm decides the project operates financially or does not. In addition, there are number of factors that need to be taken into account. In order to make the process of electricity generation in the solar farm the most efficient as it could, besides rate of solar radiation in that particular area of the Project site, scrupulous plan of preventive maintenance program is the prime factor that should be reckoned. As equipment failures can cause a long downtime period or frequently downtime incidents, hence significant loss in amount of electricity produced and consequently small amount of revenue generated from the Project. Finally, the coverage period of insurance of solar farm should be considered, the insurance shall be cover all the costs from mechanical and electrical breakdown as well as business interruption during the operation period.