Smart microgrid monitoring: Evaluation of key performance indicators for a PV plant connected to a LV microgrid

The monitoring of the daily operation of a microgrid can be used to quantify economic and environmental benefits and to evaluate key performance indicators of generation units. The goal of the present paper is that of showing the main results of a performance analysis conducted on an 80.64 kW photovoltaic plant (PV1) connected to a low voltage (LV) smart microgrid in operation in the North of Italy. The experimental campaign lasted one year, from the beginning of December 2015 to the end of November 2016, and the collected data have been analyzed to evaluate some key performance indicators, among which there are the “final yield”, the “reference yield”, and the “performance ratio”. Moreover, the performance of the plant has been compared with that of another photovoltaic plant (PV2) installed in the same site. The paper reports the main results of the aforementioned study and proposes some future research activities that could derive from it.