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33rd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2067-2068, The large scale integration of photovoltaic (PV) generation may significantly impact the reliable operation of the power system, and particularly for insular grids. In this context, combining PV and storage systems can be considered as a solution to limit these impacts, relying on an increase of PV self-consumption. However, the large deployment of PV self-consumption systems also considerably affects the power system operation, from local solar home system operation to production mix at the territory level. It also modifies the economic flows between the different actors along the power system. In this context, the INSOLATIONS project has been carried out in order to technically and economically assess the impact of a large scale deployment of self-consumption solar home systems in Martinique island (French West Indies). An additional contribution from the project is the identification of the technical and financial required conditions for the deployment of PV self-consumption systems in Martinique. This analysis has been done through simulations of individual systems and their aggregated impact on the global mix. Positive and negative externalities have been considered. The study is focused on self-consumption systems deployed at the residential level.

32nd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2331-2337, In the French overseas departments and in Corsica, insular territories, as well as in Provence, south of France, where the electric grid is weakly interconnected because of the proximity of the Mediterranean Sea and the Alps Mountains, a very high proportion of photovoltaic power will be introduced in the electric grids in the near future. In order to manage the balance between supply and demand of electricity, grid operators ask electricity producers to linearize their production and to announce in advance their energy production plans. The accuracy of these plans depends strongly on the accuracy of the prediction of the solar resource. The article proposes a new method for the benchmarking of irradiance predictions used in this context. It is shown that even for perfect energy predictions, the requirement of energy production plans brings potential costs to energy producers. The new benchmarking method compares the accuracy of the predictions with the accuracy of an ideal prediction made from the linearization of irradiance measurements and with the accuracy of the persistence prediction, which consists in using the irradiance of the current day as predicted irradiance for the next day.

29th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2843-2847, The Martinique energy agency (AME) and CEA lead a common research program on the performance of PV under the specific (tropical) climate of Martinique Island. AME has set up more than 25 roof integrated PV systems in the different climatic regions of the Island, from 7.5 kWp to 229 kWp. This 229 kWp system has been carefully monitored in order to apply the CEA’s MotherPV method which allows 1- an estimation of the installed PV peak power and 2- a very accurate modelling of the behaviour of the system, which is able to detect even very slight problems in the energy production. This article describes the specific monitoring of the system and the result of the first full application of the MotherPV with its 2 approaches: previous indoor/outdoor measurements versus in situ measurements (new method). The two approaches give very similar results (difference of 0.4 %) and can be used for the assessment of the power of photovoltaic systems and for the monitoring of the production.

28th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 4157-4159, Since several months, in most of the French overseas departments, the installed power of wind and photovoltaic energy represents more than 30% of the total power on the island electric grids. To reach a higher penetration rate of photovoltaics in these island grids, a better knowledge of the available solar resource is mandatory. In a common research program, the Martinique energy agency and CEA monitor the solar resource in Martinique Island and in the Mediterranean part (South-East) of France, the region where the penetration rate of photovoltaics is one of the highest in the country. The objectives of the common research program are 1- to measure, understand and model the irradiance and its variability; 2- to assess its influence on the energy yield of modules of various technologies; 3 – to assess the influence of the variability of the irradiance on the variability of the power injection on the electric grid, from single systems to the whole photovoltaic power installed in the territory. Preliminary studies determine the relationship between the sampling speed of resource measurements and the accuracy of the estimation of the solar resource (irradiation), depending on the variability of the irradiance. The studies also assess the reduction of the impacts on grid management by a distribution of photovoltaic generation.

25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition / 5th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, 6-10 September 2010, Valencia, Spain; 4317-4321, Buyers and sellers of photovoltaic modules have to agree with a reasonable uncertainty on the power of the modules exchanged during transactions. INES/CEA has developed a new module reception method to estimate the difference between the power sold by a module manufacturer and the real power bought by a customer. The procedure is based on the use of the flash-tests of the manufacturer and on the test of a limited number of modules at a reference laboratory. The number of modules and the uncertainty of the results are calculated thanks to Monte Carlo statistical simulations. During the Martinique’s PV Performance project, this method has been applied to a 228 kWp roofintegrated photovoltaic system of SMEM, the company in charge of the distribution of electricity in the Martinique Caribbean Island. 16 modules selected among 1460 modules have been tested at the Callab, the reference laboratory of the Fraunhofer Institute of Solar Energy in Freiburg. The method has shown with a 99 % confidence level that there is a difference from 2.3 to 3.9 % between the total power of the modules estimated from the reference laboratory’s measurements and the power directly calculated with the manufacturer’s flash-tests. The corrected power of the modules will be used for the monitoring of the 228 kWp system with the MOTHERPV SYST method.