L R AS Published on Monday 20 April 2020 - n° 318 - Categories:various sectors
What is the lifespan of a solar power plant?
The problem arose in the legal challenge of some plant owners when Spain retroactively reduced its feed-in tariffs.
State lawyers argued that the power plants had a life span of
thirty years. The ICSID accepted expert testimony that the plaintiff's solar power plants "could have continued to operate for at least 35 years".
The solar industry already assumes that its plants will last well over 25 years. If the inverters are replaced, the life of the plants can be extended by five, 10 or 15 years. The U.S. NREL estimates the life expectancy to be between 25 and 40 years. In Europe, analysts believe that developers have been able to win tenders at ultra-low prices because the plants will continue to supply electricity on a commercial basis for many years after the initial contracts for difference or power purchase agreements (PPAs) expire.
An increase in lifetime of ten or twenty years reduces the average cost of the electricity produced.
The 35-year lifetime is far from proven. There is little long-term operational data on projects with current technology. Moreover, the increasingly reduced thickness of silicon, which has allowed part of the cost reduction, makes this material fragile. Its degradation is unknown.
Are we too optimistic with a 35-year term? And then what will be the revenues of these plants in the long term? The overproduction of wind energy in Germany is already putting the grid under tension and leading to negative prices. Owners will probably have to invest in storage in order to retain income or reduce the operating costs of their plants. Some believe that IT costs, which are currently expensive to integrate and do not always work well together, can be reduced.
GreenTech Media of 17 April
