The new style of solar energy business

Creating a sustainable long-term DPV market will require aligning the interests of utilities, solar companies , technology providers, and customers. With support from the U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative, a new Rocky Mountain Institute report—Bridges to New Solar Business Models.

Opportunities to Increase and Capture the Value of Distributed Solar Photovoltaics—looks at enhancing legacy solar business models or building new ones by creating an expanded value pool, one that makes DPV affordable and accessible to far more customers, bridges beyond individual customer-centric DPV value to include value delivered to the grid and society, and allows the electricity grid’s myriad stakeholders to share in that value.

To date, a series of misalignments and market failures—including pricing structures and lack of performance-based incentives—have prevented electricity system stakeholders from taking a holistic approach to the deployment of distributed PV. Solar companies and utilities have focused on low-cost deployment onto the grid without accounting for the operational benefits and costs of integration into the grid . As a result, significant value potential is being left on the table.

For example, solar companies have worked in isolation to reduce the pre-interconnection components of distributed PV cost, such as installation labor efficiency. Further cost reductions are possible, but the most significant of them will require involvement from both solar companies and utilities together to achieve, such as with streamlined site identification, PII, and customer acquisition.

Solar Company Role: Solar companies coordinate site selection with utilities and design and install projects on the distribution system where they can provide high net value. The solar companies would work in a competitive market for projects, either responding to utilities’ RFPs or installing projects based on utility pricing mechanisms.

Solar Company Role: Solar companies sell broader energy services to customers via technology packages the utility has screened and approved. Revenues could come from the company’s ability to package DPV with complementary technologies, increasing revenue per customer and expanding the potential market to include customers who see less risk if the technology package has utility approval.

Moving forward, to refine and implement innovative solar business model solutions across the U.S. will require direct engagement from regulators, utilities, and solar companies. This will include assessing current abilities to identify value and customer needs and developing multi-stakeholder processes for assessing value.

Sun shine brightly on solar energy projects

An incomplete picture of resource variability results in poor quantification of risk with negative impacts on project finance. Indeed, in some countries, energy generated from solar is on course for grid parity – that is, able to compete, in some cases un-subsidized, with traditional sources of energy.

During the due diligence process, financiers and developers will debate the levels of solar irradiance at the project site in order to gauge the potential power output and peak delivery.  But typically what they are debating is the long-term average resource availability at the site.  The variation of the resource from year to year is implicitly understood, but often never quantified, leading to difficulties when actual generation in any one year needs to be compared to expected long-term average generation.   

Most often the solar irradiance information used to set expectations is based solely on one year’s worth of modeled TMY. Yet, weather rarely follows “typical” behavior and given increasingly erratic weather patterns, the actual conditions during any one year at a particular site generally varies significantly from the single “normalized” year’s worth of data provided by a TMY file.

It’s fairly obvious that returns are governed by the amount of power generated and subsequently sold to the grid offset by the costs of operations and the cost of capital.  Investors will have a projection of these sales based on energy assessments from the TMY data bounded by a statistical distribution and so have a rough idea of the return to the portfolio.

Except that, by screening out the natural inter-annual variability, investors and developers don’t actually give themselves a realistic idea of what the variability of their annual returns will be over the lifetime of the project. They understand only the average conditions represented by the TMY and the worst-case scenario represented in the P95 distribution.

Industry wide figures suggest that a 5% negative anomaly in solar irradiation during only the summer months for a CSP or PV site can translate to a 1-1.5% decrease in annual revenue for a solar developer or operator, highlighting a clear industry requirement to take a more comprehensive approach to gathering long-term weather data.

A better understanding of average irradiance, variability and risk is, in short, why Vaisala compiled 15+ year records of solar irradiance across the globe to help consult clients on solar assessment and forecasting issues.  The Summer Solar Performance Map of the United States, developed for the past five years, analyzes solar irradiance variability during the three-month period when peak production is commonly expected.

Trend of solar power in 2014

For a poor village, solar power companies need to concern about electricity prices. The cheaper, the better, as long as they still can earn some money to run their business. However, the fact is that the electricity generated by solar power plants  is not that cheap due to different reasons, including their solar panel prices, technology research costs, PV inverter prices, land rent costs, employment costs etc.

First off, community solar is big and getting bigger in the US. Also known as solar gardens, community solar allows residents, businesses and government customers to purchase solar energy produced from somewhere other than on their own rooftops. It enables people who are unable to install solar to still benefit from clean energy.

As solar energy was introduced to the world years ago, it has developed quickly and deprived darkness from many power users. In recent years the residential solar PV system has been invented and introduced to homes too. The highlight of its features is the family which has installed the system doesn't need to pay the power bill from the state grid, and can even begin to make money by it. Yet, to install the PV power plant at home, the owner needs to consider his budget for installing the special system. It is not that much, while it requires to pay the price first and use the electricity generated by it later.

Today, no matter in the US or in China, to help people protect the fragile environment, the two countries have subsidized the newly-launched project. The US is promoting the project, so is China, where more and more solar panel and solar inverter companies and factories have been built to manufacture the components that such a system needs.

The US Department of Energy announced that Clean Energy Collective, a specialist in community solar, will receive a $700,000 SunShot cooperative award to develop and implement a National Community Solar Platform. Undoubtedly we will hear more about community solar as it is embraced by more states and municipalities around the world.

Energy storage has not been so much of a trend as it has been a technology in need of useful solutions. At SPI last week we started to see some exciting movement in this direction. GS Battery, with manufacturing facilities in Roswell, Georgia, was showing a storage system housed in a weather-proof enclosure. Not only did the enclosure contain batteries, inverter, charge controller and cooling system, but hanging off the side is a car charger. If foot traffic to a booth is any indication of a hot solution, GS Battery just may have a winner.

Focus on the quality of the product photovoltaic power plants

For power plant quality assurance methods,we must first have a professional quality management team, technical innovation and intelligence can solve most problems; secondly, to establish from the relevant standards for manufacturing, installation, operation and maintenance as well as power plants. The focus of photovoltaic power plants should be more focus on the quality of the product life cycle of 25 years of reliability, and enter a dynamic quality testing phase.

As the size and number of PV power plant increases every year, and now the owners are more concerned about how to improve the operation and maintenance of power plants the way through testing and quality assessment, and ultimately to increase the generating capacity of the power station.

In recent years, various parts of the PV installed capacity increasing, component quality problem ensues. Assembly problem is not confined to cells, but also involves a variety of packaging materials components, such as auxiliary junction box.

Different quality grades of material, will bring a different quality components that determines the price of the component. So, the blind pursuit of component costs would cost pressures in all aspects of the industry chain to continue conducting it. In other words, the quality of the components generating revenue directly determines the photovoltaic power plant operation period of 25 years.

As for the quality of photovoltaic power plants, and now the whole industry has developed a number of standards, such as components associated components, parts, etc. have balanced the relevant standards, maturing. But after the completion of the final power plant, how to evaluate the quality of power stations still do not have a unified standard.

However, on the other hand, the standard is just a macro inspection, testing standards should be more professional and refined some. Detection of a third party can not be completely representative of the quality, micro-monitoring system itself or to rely on technology to be realized. For example, components, assemblies PV power plant is the highest part of the cost, price competition in order to seek to reduce the cost of market environment, the quality has become necessary to maintain the supply and demand sides of the bottom line.

The honor of Omnik new energy

Omnik got “Annual PV Product Innovation Award” by virtue of its “high effective、high-speed Pv inverter china”. PV inverter expert Omnik won high evaluation in the recommended comment: Omnik’s products were perfect combination of Germany core technology and Chinese wisdom, and had a number of national patents. They had the advantage of high reliability, fine intelligent, installation, and security etc. over traditional ones.

Also it provides users with 24-hour worry-free service relying on Omnik’s strong after-sales service system. Omnik’s inverters had great advantages in the protection of resources and the environment, save electric investment and bring additional power benefits, high security, etc.

Omnik’s products have the international advanced level of conversion efficiency, and passed various international certifications, such as: VDE, G83 etc. Omnik has won unanimous praise from customers both abroad and at home with its excellent parameters, quality performance, and overall attentive service.

The conversion performance ratio of Omnik’s inverter was awarded first prize in the efficiency test which is hosted by German’s authoritative PV magazine “Photo” in 2012.

It is reported that the seminar was themed by “innovative technologies, innovative applications, innovation-driven”. It was aimed at guide new directions for innovative enterprises, encourage independent innovation, and strive to master the core technology to enhance innovation system. Bring innovations of SMEs into the large enterprises purchase range. Promote the transform of innovative products and technology achievements. Industry, academia, research, application innovate jointly, building industry service platform and make contribution to PV industry.

Solar energy into the community

Community solar enables utility customers to buy or lease panels in a local solar array, or purchase clean energy from the solar facility—and receive credits on their utility bill.

Nine out of 10 people in the U.S. want to harness the sun’s energy, but only 22 to 27 percent of residential rooftops are properly sited to host a pv inverter system, reveals the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The E&Y report urges utilities to offer differentiated products with more pricing options, and community solar does precisely this. By providing its ratepayers the opportunity to use solar power at the level they feel comfortable with, a utility can satisfy a range of consumer demands.

Community solar is basically a cooperative; it works perfectly with the cooperative business model. Having a solar facility or any generation facility that the members can own themselves is just a perfect match.

Increasing demands of the antiquated utility infrastructure can threaten grid stability. But, as some power companies argue, so can the excess renewable energy fed back to the grid from rooftop arrays. Community solar can help mitigate the risks of brownouts and blackouts resulting from rising energy consumption and an increase in residential distributed generation.

Micro solar and PV inverters - advantages and disadvantages

Micro-inverters that accept DC input from two solar panels, rather than one, are a recent development. They perform independent maximum power point tracking on each connected panel. This reduces the equipment cost and makes photovoltaic (PV) systems based on micro-inverters comparable in cost with those using string solar inverter.

The main advantage is that, even small amounts of shading, debris or snow lines in any one solar panel, or a panel failure, does not disproportionately reduce the output of an entire array. Each micro-inverter obtains optimum power by performing maximum power point tracking for its connected panel.

Omnik Solar micro inverter has extremely long service life and compact volume, and could support multiple connected and remote monitor to each moduels , convenient management. No afrid of shadow, it could greatly improve overall power station generation efficieny, let you own the highest return. 

They have a higher equipment initial cost per peak watt than the equivalent power in a central inverter, and are normally located near the panel, where they may be harder to maintain. These issues are however surpassed by micro-inverters having much higher durability and simplicity of initial installation.

Community allows solar inverters career

Adaptability is the key to survival — both in nature as Charles Darwin observed, and in the business sector. As the solar industry continues to flourish, utility companies across the U.S. are beginning to witness how the traditional electric grid is transforming.

As tens of thousands of residents have solar photovoltaic panels installed on their rooftops and begin generating their own power, they need less electricity from the utility grid. The issue of net-metering, selling the excess solar energy back to the utility, has sparked a heated debate since utility companies must still incur the costs of maintaining the grid for all users — including the solar micro inverter  homes that are interconnected.

While companies spend their time battling for and against net-metering and state regulators strive to reach a compromise, other disruptive forces are quickly evolving. From battery storage and other renewable technologies to shifting consumer-usage trends and pressure to upgrade the grid, utilities face increasing threats to their centralized service model.

“The critical success factor for U.S. electric utilities will be changed behaviors,” stated Ernst & Young Executive Director Dean Maschoff, co-author of the study, From Defense to Offense. The E&Y report discusses key survival strategies for utilities, such as focusing on the consumer, increasing competitiveness through new offerings, and providing value in connection with distributed generation.

Italian PV market growth will "slam the brakes"

Italian government has announced plans to cut photovoltaic and other renewable energy incentive subsidies to alleviate the burden on consumers of electricity.

Italian green energy incentive policy management agency GSE operations director GerardoMontanino said " new best pv inverter apacity this year might range over 1.5GW-2.5GW. due to the policy Changes for the department, so it is difficult to make very precise predictions. " at the PV conference which held in the northern Italian city .

Montanino said that so far this year, the number to apply for subsidies has decreased significantly, a lot of projects have been canceled which have been applied previously, indicating that this sector is still unstable.

The European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) expects 2012 Italian new PV installed capacity will reach 3GW to of 6 GW. Thanks to a special Act, the Italian PV installed capacity last year was the explosive growth, as was the world's fastest growing PV market. By the end of 2011, Italy, the cumulative PV capacity total 12.7GW.

A little about solar inverter

Solar inverter (Photovoltaic Inverter, referred to as the solar inverters manufacturers), also known as solar photoelectric converter, DC solar photovoltaic systems can be generated into alternating current, and can be directly generated by the solar cell electric power fed into the market, providing users power for their own use, or available to the public power supply.

And network type (grid-connected or line-tied): The drive generates synchronized with the mains sinusoidal current output can be connected in parallel with the mains, the power output of solar cells directly into electricity, but can not supply independent. In areas of stable power supply, mains parallel systems without using battery power reserves.

Use Cost-Effective Solar In An Island

The Northern Mariana Islands are one of several island U.S. territories, lying three-quarters of the way from Hawai’i to the Philippines. Like most islands, their electricity supply has been almost entirely supplied by diesel-fueled generators, at enormous cost.

So why have islanders in the Marianas — such as the residents of Saipan — been struggling to install solar inverters from china and other renewable power?

The utility, Commonwealth Utilities Corporation, has raised the same objections of mainland utilities, that technical barriers inhibit the reasonable uptake of variable renewable energy. But the cooperative utility serving Kaua’i island in Hawai’i is forecasting that 50% of its daytime electric demand will be met with solar by the end of next year. And California utilities are finding solutions to many of the purported technical barriers.

The primary benefit of a switch to solar is cost. Upwards of $60 million per year is spent on diesel fuel for power generation, $1,100 per person on the islands. This expensive diesel-powered grid delivers electricity at a minimum cost of 26￠ per kilowatt-hour. Solar electricity would cut that cost by 25 percent, at a minimum. Savings from switching to solar would top $1500 per year for residential customers, and $350 per year for the utility!

Other analysis of a switch to solar suggests that the savings from getting 20 percent of peak energy from solar would be $3.3 million for the utility. At ~70 percent of peak energy from solar, savings are greater than $11 million per year.

Industrial grid-tied solar inverters

Grid Tie Inverters that are available on the market today use a number of different technologies. The inverters may use the newer high-frequency transformers, conventional low-frequency transformers, or no transformer. Instead of converting direct current directly to 120 or 240 volts AC, high-frequency transformers employ a computerized multi-step process that involves converting the power to high-frequency AC and then back to DC and then to the final AC output voltage.

Solar grid-tie inverters are designed to quickly disconnect from the grid if the utility grid goes down. This is an NEC requirement that ensures that in the event of a blackout, the grid tie inverter will shut down to prevent the energy it produces from harming any line workers who are sent to fix the power grid.

Many solar inverters are designed to be connected to a utility grid, and will not operate when they do not detect the presence of the grid. They contain special circuitry to precisely match the voltage and frequency of the grid.

Historically, there have been concerns about having transformerless electrical systems feed into the public utility grid. The concerns stem from the fact that there is a lack of galvanic isolation between the DC and AC circuits, which could allow the passage of dangerous DC faults to be transmitted to the AC side. Since 2005, the NFPA's NEC allows transformerless inverters. The VDE 0126-1-1 and IEC 6210 also have been amended to allow and define the safety mechanisms needed for such systems.