ABSTRACT
In 1996 a 250 kWp grid-connected PV system was realised on 71 houses and apartments in Nieuw Sloten, a newly built city district of Amsterdam. Since then, the system has been operational and has been monitored. In this paper the results of one full year of monitoring are presented. The annual performance ratio of the total system was 77%, for subsections varying from 68% to 79%. Mismatch as a consequence of coupling of arrays with various orientations to a single inverter has led to a loss of annual energy yield of less than 1%. The annual yield of the PV system covers the electricity demand of approx. 85 households; the direct use of the generated PV power in the district has been 100% almost all the time. No losses due to inverter undersizing have been observed. A further reduction of the electricity production costs may be realised in similar projects by avoiding shading due to chimneys (3%) and by avoiding east and west oriented PV roofs (4%).
