Specific yield (kWh/kWp)
Energy produced per unit of installed capacity — the cross-site comparator.
Specific yield is the energy a plant produces per unit of installed DC capacity, in kWh per kWp, over a period (often a year). Because it divides out plant size, it lets you compare a 5 MWp and a 200 MWp plant — or two sites in different climates — on equal footing. It blends resource quality and plant performance into one figure.
Definition
Specific yield = total energy produced ÷ installed DC capacity. Unlike PR, it does not normalise out irradiation, so a sunnier site shows a higher specific yield even at the same efficiency. It is the natural unit for fleet benchmarking, yield-forecast validation, and expressing a site’s resource in operator-friendly terms.
Formula
Specific yield (kWh/kWp) = energy produced (kWh) ÷ installed DC capacity (kWp)
Typical range
Annual specific yield runs ~900–1,200 kWh/kWp in Northern Europe, ~1,500–1,900 in Iberia and ~1,800–2,200 in the Gulf and other high-irradiation regions. Below the regional norm, with PR healthy, usually means a weaker resource year rather than a plant fault.
Why it matters
Specific yield is how owners compare assets across a portfolio and how actuals are checked against the P50/P90 yield forecast that underwrote the financing. A site running below its forecast specific yield triggers the question PR then answers: is it the weather, or the plant?
How NuraVolt tracks it
NuraVolt reports specific yield per plant and per portfolio, benchmarks it against the site’s P50/P90 forecast and against climate-comparable peers, and pairs it with PR so an underperforming site is immediately split into resource shortfall versus recoverable plant loss.
Frequently asked questions
See also
The headline efficiency number for a PV plant, independent of weather.
The share of nameplate a plant actually delivered over time.
Actual generation measured against a physics model of what the plant should have made.
See this on your own plants
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