Project certification of photovoltaic power plants

A project certificate is a “ticket to trade” when financing or selling the project with mitigated risks and maximised stakeholder confidence.

DNV's new service specification DNVGL-SE-0078 contains procedural requirements for obtaining and retaining statements of compliance for all phases of the project and a project certificate for the PV power plant. Since the average cost per kWh of a utility-scale PV power plant has dropped significantly, the Financing of a project needs to be challenged/improved. One important step is the mitigation of technical risk to reduce finance costs. Higher investment costs require high quality and mitigation of the technical and financial risks.

The service specification
This service specification applies to project certification and related verification tasks during design, manufacturing, transport, installation, commissioning and operation of PV power plants. This service specification is generally applicable for grid connected PV power plants. Each certification phase can be verified independently. The typical project certification applicant is the PV power plant developer, owner or operator. The splitting of the project certificate per phase allows for the involvement of phase related contractors in the project set-up. The project certificate is a “ticket to trade” when financing or selling the project.

The relevance of project certification
Project certification of PV power plants across all phases of the lifecycle is unique in the market and can be used worldwide. The new DNV certification scheme allows certification of your pre- and post-construction projects. The most recent technical knowhow and field experience has been entered into this service specification, addressing the requirements for planning, components and construction of PV power plants.

The added value of project certification

Certified quality
Issued by an accredited certification body, the certificate gives you and your stakeholders the confidence that a PV power plant project has been assessed against industry best practice standards, state-of-the-art technology and that the documentation is accurate.

Risk reduction
A complete lifecycle approach to projects can be applied to reduce the total risk and avoid costly and technically challenging field modifications during the project’s in-service phase. This contributes to the reduction in costs over the life-time and technical bankability of the project.

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