On the use of dynamic reliability for an accurate modelling of renewable power plants

This paper presents a modelling approach which integrates both the deterministic and the stochastic nature of renewable power plants using a novel methodology inspired from reliability engineering: the Stochastic Hybrid Fault Tree Automaton. The main steps for the design of a renewable power plant are discussed and implemented to estimate the energy production of a real photovoltaic power plant by means of a Monte Carlo simulation process. The proposed approach, modelling the failure behavior of the system, helps also with the evaluation of other key performance indicators like the power plant and the service availability.