Early Experience of the Generation Pattern of Grid Connected Solar PV System in Bangladesh: A SARIMA Analysis

The Engreen solar PV power plant at Shorishabari, Jamalpur, is the first large scale grid connected solar PV plant in Bangladesh, and has been operating for over three years. As the first PV plant of its type, it offers insights into the performance of grid connected solar PV in Bangladesh. In this study, we use the monthly data from the power plant for its operating life until the recent month, and the seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) model to find out the generation trend of the plant. We find that monthly and seasonal differencing is required, and that the model (1,1,8) x (0,1,0)12 is the most suitable. We conduct a forecast for the model to predict electricity generation for the last eight months of our sample period, and find that the forecast traces the actual generation values, but without having the same extreme values. Further scope for research includes longer time series data as it becomes available in the future, and incorporating the effects of exogenous factors such as solar radiation, temperature and grid outages.