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CEF132 - Solar Photovoltaics (PV) Project Feasibility Analysis Course

What you will learn:

By completing this course, participants will acquire the essential knowledge and practical skills to perform the type of feasibility analysis that enables project  stakeholders to decide whether or not to proceed with a potential renewable energy project. Specifically, successful participants will have learned:

  • The technologies of solar PV systems, the various types of solar PV projects, the equipment and processes involved, in what context they are most interesting and appropriate
  • How to identify economically viable potential solar PV projects
  • How to perform full-scale project feasibility analysis for solar PV projects
  • How to use RETScreen to evaluate the quantitative technical and economic factors of solar PV projects
  • The complete method to calculate the payback, return on investment, and other financial ratios for solar PV projects
  • Essential business, technical and project management skills

Training Material

The training material for the course includes multimedia presentations on Solar PV technologies, RETScreen, SAM and Homer (clean energy project analysis software models) and related engineering eTextbooks, as well as various other related resources (case studies, etc.). The learning is guided by one or more facilitators available to participants via Skype VoIP or text messaging, weekly teleconferencing, discussion forums, etc. This course was Initially developed using material from RETScreen and has evolved to cover a number of other tools such as PVSyst, System Advisor Model ()SAM), Homer and other economic and technical modelling tools.

This course covers solar PV for:

  • Residential
  • Commercial (Businesses, Industries)
  • Utility scale
  • Off-grid applications
  • Grid-connected applications
  • Water pumping
  • Developing countries

Course content:

  • Overview of solar PV systems
  • Components of solar PV systems
  • Off-grid systems
  • On-grid systems
  • Water pumping systems
  • Solar resource assessment & optimization
  • Solar-load correlation
  • Solar PV system and project costs
  • Solar PV project feasibility tools, methods, and elements
  • Guided exercises on performing RETScreen solar project analysis
  • Assignment on planning and conducting of a solar PV project feasibility analysis based on a case study
  • Real-world feasibility analysis projects