Solar Lattice

Mitigation

Improved available-power estimation

ID
mit:available-power-estimation
IRI
https://solarlattice.org/kb/mit/available-power-estimation
Status
active

This action makes the estimate of how much power the plant could have produced more accurate. It is one of the listed mitigations for grid curtailment yield losses. It applies when curtailment keeps export below the power the plant could deliver. Curtailment cuts the energy actually delivered and makes performance metrics hard to read, even when availability and equipment health are normal. At sites with storage, record whether curtailed PV energy was charged, clipped or abandoned. A battery can only recover curtailed energy if it has capacity, power headroom, control permission and an operating goal that values the charge. Use the estimate together with separate curtailment tracking and curtailment-aware metrics. A low performance ratio during curtailed hours may reflect grid instructions rather than a module, inverter or tracker problem. Without this separation, teams may chase false equipment faults and miss real gains in dispatch, controls or storage use. The sources give no figures for how effective the action is.

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