Losses Categorization Table

The Losses Categorization Table provides a detailed breakdown that allows you to identify and quantify the causes behind the energy losses of your plants, compared to the predicted production. This provides insight and a detailed understanding of the reasons behind the losses, enabling you to make strategic decisions to improve your energy production.

This feature leverages GPM's Advanced Analytics to allow plant managers and operators to maximize efficiency, reduce unnecessary losses, and align the performance of their plants with their financial and environmental objectives.


Figure 1. Losses Categorization Table Period selector: click to select the time period covered by the table. Table: displays the categories and losses affecting your assets for the selected time period. Time stamp: displays the time when the data on the table was last updated.

Loss Categories

Loss categories are detailed and quantifiable definitions of the factors that affect your assets and cause losses in production and output. This enables a level of great detail to classify and analyze the difference between the expected or estimated energy production and the actual production at the level of plants and individual devices (for example, inverters or turbines).

Note: For more information, see the sections on Advanced Analytics and Loss Categories.


Category	Description
Actual energy	Real energy output of the plant after accounting for all losses.
Clipping	Losses caused by limiting the energy production of inverters to their maximum capacity.
Curtailment	Deliberate reduced output due to grid management or response to overproduction.
Expected energy/Theoretical production	Projected energy yield after taking into consideration corrections for irradiance and temperature.
Grid outage	Energy lost or not produced due to failures in the connectivity of the power grid.
Inverter efficiency	Discrepancy between the expected and the actual performance of inverters.
Inverter outage	Downtime or inefficiency of inverters, affecting energy conversion.
Irradiance correction	Adjustment of predicted production, based on real-time solar irradiance.
Partial breakdown	Malfunction or degradation in a section of the solar array.
Predicted production	Initial forecast of energy output, based on historical data and plant capacity.
Temperature correction	Modification to account for temperature impacts on the efficiency of panels.
Shadow	Losses caused by shading of the panels, due to natural or artificial obstructions.
Soiling	Losses caused by dirt, dust and other residues on solar panels.
Tracker misalignment	Reduced efficiency due to the solar trackers sub-optimally aligning the panels with the sun.
Tracker stow	Losses caused when trackers are stowed for protection (for example, during harsh weather conditions).
Vegetation	Reduced efficiency caused by overgrown vegetation that casts shadows or damages panels.
Other losses	Miscellaneous or unidentified causes.