PV Plant Equipment Lead Time

[farmaped]

Preliminary planning of a large (~1-3 MW ; 12.47kV Interconnect) PV Plant.
I'm assuming the 3MVA power transformer would be the long lead time (8-12 mths) item, but not being familiar with PV systems, might the inverter(s), panels, etc. exceed a 1 yr lead time?
We are considering doing the project in 2 stages:
Stage 1: Engineer / Design the Infrastructure (from the 480V/12.47kV PV Plant transformer - Upstream to the 69kV Utility PCC) (to include interconnection study / application)
Stage 2: PV Plant Design / Construction (Connect to 480V/12.47kV xfmr)
Many reasons for this, some economical, some restrictions, and buying time (if PV is not economical justifiable, installation of another renewable or alternate energy source - tied into the 3MVA infrastructure system designed in Stage 1).
So... perhaps I have 2 questions. From a big picture overview, anything objectionable to this plan?
Thanks!

 

[jaggedben]

I don't work in utility scale solar, but my impression is that such plants usually involve a special deal with a manufacturer. You're not likely to find 3MW of panels sitting on a shelf somewhere. I would not be surprised if the whole bidding and negotiating cycle on an order of that size does exceed a year.

Inverters I'm guessing require less lead time, but I don't know.

Racking might also have a lead time issue.

On any project I work on (admittedly never as big as this), I always try to start with asking the questions I don't know the answers to. So I would start talking to manufacturers now, and asking them directly what their lead times are.

 

[zog]

I stock 3MVA transformers