Existing California solar customers may get blindsided with net metering cuts

By the decade’s end, data centers in the United States are projected to account for as much as 35 GW of demand and about 9% of the country’s electricity consumption. Though these are merely forecasts, to power the 24/7, 365-day operations, utilities plan to finance dozens of GWs worth of new generation resources from clean energy to natural gas.

According to a Goldman Sachs study, natural gas could supply 60% of the expected data center demand. This significant increase in gas is reflected in many utility integrated resource plans, including Dominion Energy in Virginia, which wants to build more than 2.9 GW of new long-term gas capacity in the next 15 years as a short-term solution to load increase. Some utilities have also resorted to proposing new payment structures in addition to planned generation resources. AEP Ohio proposed a unique tariff structure that, if approved, would require new large-capacity data centers to pay for their own transmission needs, and Duke Energy is considering contract agreements for data centers that would require them to provide upfront financial contributions to construct new generation resources to help power them.

Besides natural gas, nuclear is also seen as an option to power data centers, with various developers and data companies already examining this alternative. For example, Oklo, a California-based advanced nuclear company, has committed itself to providing its clean energy solution in response to increasing demand for AI adoption and data centers. The company announced a non-binding partnership in late May with Wyoming Hyperscale, which wants to use Oklo’s microreactor design to power a state-of-the-art data center campus using 100 MW of nuclear energy. As for data-heavy companies, Amazon Web Services bought a 960 MW Cumulus data center campus in northeast Pennsylvania in early March that will be powered by the 2.5 GW Susquehanna nuclear power plant. Nevertheless, with the construction price for compatible small modular reactors (SMRs) rising and SMRs and microreactors still far from commercialization, this reality may not come to fruition anytime soon. Plus, if new large-scale reactors are considered, the estimated $7.6 billion cost to ratepayers of the now-operational Vogtle Units 3 and 4 – which increased residential rates by about $9 a month – might dampen the prospects of nuclear as an option as well.

Either way, new resource proposals will persist as artificial intelligence and other significant data sources enter the equation as a catalyst, partly because heavy-data users like Google are experimenting with technology like AI-infused internet browsing. For context, compared to a Google search that consumes approximately 0.3 Wh per request, a single AI-powered Google search request may even consume about 23x to 30x more than, according to worst-case scenarios and research estimates published in late 2023. It is important to note that these estimations are dependent on a number of factors staying the same, including the availability of AI-based chips and the 24/7 operations of data centers at max capacity. However, as data center efficiency grows and operation procedures change, these estimates will shift.

Moreover, while the national impact of data centers is expected to take up a significant chunk of the nation’s overall electricity consumption, the most significant ramifications will be seen on a state-to-local level, especially as growth continues to concentrate in specific pockets of the country. State by state, Virginia is far ahead in the number of current data centers. The northern part of the state is considered the nation’s most significant data center market, even the world, with 35% of the globe’s hyperscale data center share – a type of data center facility that typically supports the business activities of massive data-driven companies like Google, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft, just to name a few. The state legislature has responded by introducing bills this year to limit the provision of sales and use tax exemptions to only centers that demonstrate certain energy efficiency requirements, requiring localities to assess the grid impacts of proposed center sites, and disallowing utilities from recovering costs through their customers from electric grid infrastructure that mainly services the load coming from data centers.

Other state responses have been more mixed in their reaction, with Massachusetts – a state with about 50 data centers – introducing legislation courting new centers with a sales and use tax exemption, Michigan pushing forward with an extension of their existing data center tax exemption until mid-century, and New York – with almost 130 data centers – wanting to create an energy benchmarking program to account for high-energy infrastructure.

While the legislative and utility actions mentioned address the potential grid and energy impacts of data centers, they also touch on the future downstream cost issues associated with a utility’s response to the massive amount of incoming load growth and the capital recovery that customers, especially those that are low-income, will have to deal with.

Map of energy consumption from data centers in states with significant 2023 load. Data center consumption data depicts the highest-growth scenario states are projected to see in 2030 relative to total electricity consumption. Data Source: EPRI

Low-income load bearers

As utilities attack the projected data center load growth issue with additional investments and emerging technological applications, the customer is positioned to help subsidize the cost through rate increases as part of these utilities’ cost recovery processes. In the case of Duke Energy in North Carolina, the utility can recoup about 10% from new construction.

However, while wealthier households have the financial cushion to protect themselves from these rate increases, low-income customers do not, so the weight of frequent or significant bill increases bears greater financial struggle. The lack of financial security for low-income households is exemplified by one’s energy burden. In the United States, the national average energy burden, or the percentage of gross household income spent on energy bills, for low-income households is 6%, according to the Department of Energy’s Low-Income Energy Affordability Data (LEAD) tool. This average is based on an estimated 51 million households that identify as low-income, which is about 42% of all households in the country.

Depending on a person’s locality and household income, the energy burden can even be higher than 30%, particularly if you live in the Southeast. Even the financial toll from trying to keep cool during the summer heat can spike a household’s energy burden, which the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA) and the Center for Energy Poverty and Climate (CEPC) reported will increase by 7.9% this year. With the expected increase in utility bills in the coming years, such a high and localized energy burden rate may become more widespread and prevalent.

Low-income utility bill assistance

Since the reality of the energy burden in the country is not a new phenomenon, there are a number of financial assistance programs and approaches that the federal government, states, and investor-owned electric utilities have either implemented or are currently examining as options. For example, modeled after Maine’s “Project Fuel” program and created in response to the OPEC oil embargo in the early 1970s, the federal government established the Emergency Energy Conservation Program later in the decade to provide weatherization-focused assistance and eventually direct bill assistance for low-income households. It was one of the earliest programs of its kind. It would end up turning into what is now known as the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), operating in every state, the District of Columbia, and most tribes and territories, to prevent energy-bill payment emergencies by providing payments to fuel suppliers/utilities and/or households.

Map depicting the national energy burden distribution for low-income households based on state median income; Source: U.S. Department of Energy Low-income Energy Affordability Data Tool

LIHEAP is commonly used to determine income eligibility for several other state and utility assistance programs. However, access to the federal program has been severely limited. Federal funding for fiscal year 2024 was cut by $2 billion compared to 2023, reducing the number of low-income households served by 1 million in addition to the program’s benefits. Because of the severe budget fluctuations that each state program faces due to federal decision-making, state and utility assistance programs are critical to help fill in the gap and then some.

Many additional state and utility programs exist and vary in terms of approach and scope and can take the form of an income-based discount, a percentage of income payment plan (PIPP), and an income-graduated fixed charge, among other types of payment assistance, like late payment fee and utility shut-off exemptions. Income-based discounts entail a utility or a state providing a continuous or one-time payment attributed to an income-eligible customer, either removing the mandatory fixed charge from a bill or providing a percentage reduction of the overall monthly bill according to a specific income range, among other offers.

Then, there are PIPPs, which refer to income-specific payment plans that allow certain customers to pay only a portion of their utility bill based on a percentage of their overall income. Existing PIPPs vary in terms of their price cap. Still, no program in the country inches above 10% of a household’s income, and some programs may also determine percentage payments based on the primary heat source, electric or otherwise. This payment plan is comparable to a student loan income-driven repayment plan. It can be a helpful tool to limit a low-income household’s monthly energy expenditures and allow households to dedicate a higher share of their disposable income to pay off other bills and to put food on the table, or perhaps allow a household to establish and/or grow their savings.

There is also the income-graduated fixed charge approach, which has only recently been implemented in California. This novel method of equitable ratemaking mirrors progressive taxation, in which the lower your income, the less you must pay, and is a significant departure for investor-owned utilities in the state impacted by this change, which did not impose fixed charges before this.

Part Two of this blog will look at the utility perspective on equitable ratemaking.

Justin Lindemann is a policy analyst at NC Clean Energy Technology Center.

This article originally published by NC Clean Energy Technology Center. Click here to learn about our DSIRE Insight subscriptions, custom research, and consulting offerings on various clean energy technologies for interested individuals or organizations. 

Given a choice, most people would prefer new renewable energy projects to new fossil-fuel generation sources. This is the finding of a survey conducted by energy storage systems provider Powin.

The company included responses from 1,000 American consumers 18 years of age or older in its survey.

Among the findings: Two-thirds of respondents said they would prefer that their electricity provider build more solar projects supported by storage to meet increasing demand rather than new natural gas (38%) or coal (13%) plants.

In addition, the survey found that 48% of respondents had confidence that solar-plus-storage facilities were capable of meeting future electricity demands. Only 25% did not think so.

At the same time, the survey suggested that Americans were undereducated about their own energy requirements and future needs. Only 38% of respondents knew how much electricity their residences consumed.

“While nearly half of respondents (44%) claim their residence does not need more energy today than five years ago, the lack of knowledge around overall consumption suggests that the average consumer is not actually aware of how their usage has changed,” the report said.

The report claims that this disconnect is especially troubling because public support is going to be needed for new energy infrastructure projects going forward. Powin cites a number of factors contributing to greater electricity demand in the near future, including new data centers driven by proliferating artificial intelligence needs, electric vehicles and residential electrification.

The penetration of utility-scale energy storage, seen as a key technology for expanding intermittent sources such as solar and wind, is tied closely with state-support. The Powin report points to a number of states that are leading efforts to implement storage through targets and mandates. New York is at the top of the list with a target of 6,000 MW of grid-connected storage capacity by 2030.

Powin’s survey is designed to highlight public support for renewable energy solutions to increasing energy demand as well as the need for consumers to become more knowledgeable about future energy requirements and the potential costs involved.

“Bridging this knowledge gap is crucial for gaining public support for the necessary changes and ensuring a smooth transition to a more sustainable and reliable energy future,” the report concludes.

Schools in the United States from kindergarten through high school are adopting solar energy in significant numbers. A report from Generation180 found that one in nine students in K-12 have solar at their school.

Energy is second only to teacher salaries when it comes to cost, according to NREL, and U.S. schools spend more than $6 billion a year on the line item. Solar presents an opportunity for schools to alleviate budget pressure, often at little or no upfront cost, freeing up funds for more educational benefits.

Schools often sign a power purchase agreement (PPA) when going solar, allowing the school to buy the electricity produced by the solar installation for 10 to 25 years at a discounted rate, serving up cost savings from day one. Generation180 said about 80% of schools go for the PPA route, while about 12% opt for direct ownership via cash, loan, or bond, and 8% own the system through grants, government funds, or private donations.

Generation180 has tracked school solar data since 2014. Over the ten year span of the report, solar capacity at schools has more than quadrupled from 422 MW to 1,814 MW. Nearly 9,000 schools now have solar, and the average system size has grown about 50% from 134 kW to 202 kW.

“During the past ten years, the falling installation price made going solar an affordable option for more schools. Between 2014 and 2024, the cost to install solar dropped by 40%,” said the report from Generation180. “There has never been a better time for schools to flip the switch to clean energy.”

California has the most solar schools in the nation with 2,815, this is followed by New Jersey (696), Illinois (568), Arizona (411), and Connecticut (336). In terms of percent of schools that have adopted solar, the rooftop solar-friendly state of Hawaii leads the way with 30% of schools, followed by Connecticut (27%) and Washington D.C. (24%).

As for energy storage, which is increasingly being attached to solar projects from the residential to the utility-scale, schools have yet to adopt this technology. As of January 2024, approximately 40 schools across six states had installed battery storage with a cumulative power capacity of 7.7 MW, according to Generation180.

“Excess energy produced by the solar panels can be stored for later use,” said Generation180 on the benefits of storage. “The stored energy can be discharged to the grid when electricity rates are peaking, resulting in utility bill savings. During grid outages, energy storage can be used to power the building and keep the school operating for students or as a community shelter during natural disasters.”

Generation180 said there is much to look forward to with the buildout of solar on schools. Projects are being built via federal funding allocated by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, including over $3.1 billion in funding already awarded to K-12 public schools through the EPA Clean School Bus Program and Department of Energy’s Renew America’s Schools Program.

Furthermore, the first clean energy tax credit payments, enabled by Elective Pay, or direct pay, in the Inflation Reduction Act will be issued to schools in 2024. Under IRA, schools can qualify for up to a 50% tax credit when combining the base credit 30% with a domestic content bonus of 10% and an Energy Community bonus of 10%.

Community solar has recently taken off, surpassing 7 GW of installed capacity in the U.S. and analyst firm, Wood Mackenzie, expects community solar installed capacity to essentially double in five years.

Community solar typically involves a customer subscribing to a portion of an off-site solar project’s generating capacity, receiving credits on their utility bills for the electricity produced by the facility. The Coalition for Community Solar Access (CCSA) noted that household names such as Microsoft, Google, Walmart, Starbucks, Rivian, Wendy’s, and T-Mobile are just a few of the Fortune 500 companies that have signed agreements with community solar developers.

Corporations are signing onto community solar for several reasons, the first of which is that they are looking to meet their clean energy and sustainability goals. Distributed energy projects, like community solar, are smaller projects that are located on the distribution side of the energy grid and are generally up and running much faster than utility-scale projects. Furthermore, many community solar projects have an environmental justice component, often bringing lower-cost energy to low-income residents and supporting this cause support corporations’ ESG goals.

While the companies can invest in many types of clean energy projects and receive renewable energy certificates (RECs) that help them meet sustainability goals, yet companies increasingly want to give back to their communities beyond just buying clean energy.

For example, Microsoft and Pivot Energy announced a five-year partnership to develop up to 500 MW of community-scale solar projects, which will produce more than 1 billion kWh of electricity annually, starting in 2025. The agreement is Pivot’s largest REC agreement to date. It also marks Microsoft’s first major distributed generation portfolio investment. Microsoft will purchase RECs generated by the projects for a 20-year term.

Microsoft, which has over 200 data centers worldwide, reports that it has a goal of covering 100% of those energy needs with renewable energy production by 2025, plans to be carbon negative by 2030 and says that by 2050 it will “remove our historical emissions since our founding in 1975.” In its 2022 Solar Means Business report, the Solar Energy Industries Association ranked Microsoft fifth on the list of corporate buyers of solar energy, joining Meta, Apple, Amazon and Walmart as leaders.

“An economy fueled by clean, distributed energy can do more than provide power at low cost; it drives growth and success in communities across the nation. This [collaboration] helps to build more inclusive, local economic growth across 100 communities while addressing the sustainability needs and opportunities within those communities,” said Adrian Anderson, GM, Renewables, Carbon Free Energy, CDR, Microsoft in its announcement with Pivot Energy.

Walmart also recently announced a partnership with Pivot Energy to invest in 19 solar projects in development across the U.S., including 15 community solar projects. The tax equity investment will support the construction, operation, and maintenance of solar projects in Illinois, Colorado, Maryland, Delaware, and California.

The investment from Walmart will facilitate 72 MW of community solar projects, 41 MW of which are located in Colorado and designed to serve low- and moderate-income homes. The community solar projects are expected to be completed in 2024 and 2025, serving an estimated 7,000 households and creating an estimated $6 million in annual savings for subscribers to the projects.

In March Walmart also extended and expanded upon its 2021 agreement with Nexamp, to create 26 community solar projects across six states that will produce enough electricity to support community solar subscriptions for  about 13,000 residential households in the U.S. annually and enable approximately $8 million in annual bill savings.

In June, Ampion announced that Wendy’s will source between 30% and 100% of its energy from solar without the need to install solar panels onsite. Wendy’s plans to increase the number of restaurants enrolled in Ampion’s community solar program as additional solar generation capacity comes online and more franchise restaurants enroll in the program.

Last year, Wendy’s set near-term science-based targets to reduce absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 47%, and Scope 3 emissions from franchisees by 47% per restaurant by 2030, from a 2019 baseline.Through Ampion, Wendy’s locations have enrolled approximately 27.5 million kWh in community solar or the equivalent electricity needed for 2,200 homes for one year. Each kilowatt hour will be accounted for, tracked, and assigned ownership to a specific restaurant location via RECs through the Ampion+ product.

“We are excited about the opportunity this partnership provides our Company and franchise restaurant operators by making it easier and more accessible to source clean energy while ultimately realizing cost savings,” said Steven Derwoed, vice president, global design & construction at Wendy’s. “We are advancing progress toward our emissions reduction goals through community solar participation and RECs. It’s a win-win for the Company and our franchisees.”

In July, Starbucks and Nexamp agreed to 40 MW of community solar projects in Illinois in which Starbucks will receive a portion of the renewable energy credits, with the remaining capacity of each project being allocated to over 1,100 residents and small businesses throughout the area. Rivian and Pivot also recently agreed to partner on community solar projects in Illinois, in which each MWac purchased also includes a $5,000 donation to locally sited community development organizations.

“Community solar gives companies, both large and small, the versatility to structure their participation in innovative ways to meet their business needs,” said Jeff Cramer, CEO of the CCSA. “While mom and pop stores are an important contingent of community solar subscribers, we’re now seeing some of the world’s largest corporations invest in community solar and other distributed generation projects — driving local clean energy and enabling much needed bill savings to communities most in need. The buy-in to community solar is now vast and varied, coming from the Department of Energy, Fortune 500 companies, and state legislatures across the country.”

Currently, 19 states and the District of Columbia have policies in place that permit third-party, competitive community solar development, while multiple states are advancing legislation to enable new programs.

Nevados trackers to qualify as domestic content in 2025 Nevados reports that now taking orders for its domestic content All Terrain Trackers that it says will fully comply with both Treasury’s new elective safe harbor and pre-existing direct cost requirements, helping developers qualify for a 10% domestic content tax credit, which is in addition to the 30% base investment tax credit.

Novel blockchain-based virtual utility for P2P PV trading Researchers from Canada’s Western University have developed an open-source, blockchain-based virtual utility for peer-to-peer (P2P) solar trading, using smart contracts to save up to $1,600 (US dollars) for 10 homes in simulated scenarios.

Global polysilicon prices stable amid steady fundamentals In a new weekly update for pv magazine, OPIS, a Dow Jones company, provides a quick look at the main price trends in the global PV industry.

TMEIC announces 9 GW utility-scale solar inverter factory in Texas The Japan-headquartered manufacturer plans a 144,000 square foot U.S. facility.

In case you missed it: Five big solar stories in the news this week  pv magazine USA spotlights news of the past week including market trends, project updates, policy changes and more.

12 GW of utility-scale solar deployed in first half of 2024, doubling 2023 

The Energy Information Administration reports that 20.2 GW of electricity generation capacity was deployed in the U.S. in the first half of 2024, with solar energy leading and energy storage also seeing significant deployments. Fossil fuel retirements exceeded new fossil constructions more than tenfold.

Google invests in 800 MW solar project in Illinois

The Double Black Diamond Solar project may be the largest solar installation east of the Mississippi when complete in 2025.

U.S. module manufacturers seek “critical” retroactive tariffs

Led by First Solar and Hanwha Q Cells, U.S. solar module manufacturers have filed allegations with the Commerce Department, citing “critical circumstances” and suggesting increased module imports due to their previous lawsuit filings.

Most states with renewables targets are meeting them

Nearly all states with a renewable portfolio standard have met or nearly met their current standard. Four states have yet to meet their solar carve-out requirements.

We must onshore the supply chain

With the introduction of the American Tax Dollars for American Solar Manufacturing Act earlier this month, senators are trying to close this work-around and put American manufacturing back on a level playing field.

The California Energy Commission expects to issue flexible demand appliance standards for electric storage water heaters “hopefully” within months, said Michael Sokol, director of the efficiency division at the California Energy Commission (CEC), on a webinar hosted by the Clean Energy States Alliance.

The CEC issued a flexible demand appliance standard for pool controls last October. CEC Commissioner Andrew McAllister said at the time that a standard for electric storage water heaters would be next, noting that ten of the largest heat pump manufacturers had committed to help California reach its goal of 6 million heat pumps for water or space heating by 2030.

Flexible demand appliance standards in California will work in tandem with flexible rates for electricity, enabling appliances to operate when rates are lower, for example when renewable generation is high.

EV chargers, batteries, and more

The CEC has set a tentative sequence for developing flexible demand appliance standards for five more types of appliances, based on “our early analysis” and preliminary stakeholder planning discussions, Sokol said.

The third standard, after pool controls and electric storage water heaters, is expected to cover electric vehicle supply equipment, such as EV chargers. Next would be standards for battery energy storage systems.

The next three standards to be developed would have “end-user time impacts,” Sokol said, namely low-voltage thermostats, electric clothes dryers and dishwashers.

McAllister said last year that California aims to reach 7 GW of load flexibility by combining 3 GW of price-responsive demand from appliances with 4 GW of traditional demand response, in which some customers “drop load” during the 100 highest-demand hours of the year.

A Californian who owns a pool and operated a flexible demand pool control unit on its default schedule would save about $100 per year, Sokol said. Customers will have the ability to override the default schedule and operate a pool control unit at times of their choosing.

CalFlexHub

Much of the research underlying the new standards is conducted by the California Load Flexibility Research and Deployment Hub (CalFlexHub) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

CalFlexHub will hold an all-day symposium on September 24.

Two years ago, the Biden Administration and Congress worked together to begin the process of reshoring solar manufacturing.

For the last 20 years, China has been working hard to secure a monopoly over this critical technology. While China has mostly succeeded, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) created a set of incentives to get us back in the game. But, one critical piece may undermine our progress – we are letting China-headquartered companies locate final manufacturing in the United States, taking advantage of those same incentives while preserving their supply chain monopoly over the fundamental components.

Fortunately, with the introduction of the American Tax Dollars for American Solar Manufacturing Act earlier this month, senators are trying to close this work-around and put American manufacturing back on a level playing field.

Solar energy was invented in the United States, but right now nearly all of it, and about 99% of the fundamental component (the wafer), is being manufactured elsewhere, specifically, by Chinese-controlled companies. As our government works to invest in clean energy, we’re incentivizing companies to build back their operations in the U.S. so Americans can benefit from good-paying jobs, foster innovation from our world-leading R&D abilities, and establish energy independence in the critical technologies for our future.

Congress created a remarkably far-sighted system to reshore solar, batteries and wind technology. Policymakers not only created supply-side incentives in the advanced manufacturing production incentive that encourage manufacturers to build big factories quickly, but they paired them with demand-side incentives to give developers who use the products a bonus if they buy the products of those factories as they build solar and wind farms.

Unfortunately, the guidance for that bonus issued by the Treasury Department so far has missed the mark and has now become one of the biggest obstacles to jumpstarting the onshoring of American solar manufacturing. As it stands, Chinese companies can continue to leverage their monopoly power over the fundamental components of solar, produced with weak environmental and labor protections as well as massive direct subsidies, and sell to projects claiming the “domestic content bonus.” The clock is ticking to get this right as billions of investment dollars and thousands of jobs in solar manufacturing hang in the balance. In a very real sense, the future of solar energy depends on it.

China has dominated the solar manufacturing sector for a decade, and they’ve done it using a familiar playbook to those of us who’ve watched what the OPEC cartel has done to oil markets. OPEC’s ability to control price was legendary and it wasn’t limited to keeping prices high. Much more importantly, they could crash prices when they wanted to in order to run out competition. From “heavy oil” in Venezuela, to oil sands in Canada, to fracking in the US, OPEC has demonstrated again and again that you can either join them like Venezuela or be run over, with the attendant economic crash that people in Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas have seen many times over.

Now, China is doing the same thing in solar – as we are currently seeing the lowest prices in history, far below production cost – to stifle our manufacturing renaissance before it gets a chance to take off. Stymying competition and, thus, innovation is chapter one of the cartel playbook and China has perfected their execution.

Look no further than our friends across the pond: nearly all of the European solar manufacturers have closed operations due to insufficient protections from below market Chinese products. Many are even looking to the United States, but that will quickly change if our policies don’t keep pace.

To build a robust solar supply chain in the United States, our government must prove that we have the backs of our manufacturers. Companies will not invest here if they do not think they will be protected. How are U.S. manufacturers supposed to compete when China is setting prices far below the cost of production?

The fact is, international competition is not for the faint of heart. Our companies can hold their own, but only if the government has their backs and helps build the foundation for successful competition. This means leveraging our strengths; our unmatched innovation apparatus, strong investor base, and our brutally efficient market that forces constant improvement. But this only works if we don’t ignore the fact that China simply doesn’t have a free market economy.

Unlike the U.S., where most of our economy is us selling products and services to each other, their entire economic system requires exports, because their consumer class doesn’t have the ability to support their economy. This means, the U.S. government must work to produce a level playing field for U.S. manufacturers through the three legged stool of production support, demand incentives, and tariffs and other trade remedies. For the first time in several generations, we’re on the path to building the supports our economy needs to thrive in these all-important industries – as long as we don’t lose our will to succeed,

No one action can unwind the years of investment that Chinese-headquartered solar firms have made to control the solar industry, but we must act now with every tool at our disposal. By updating the domestic content bonus, enforcing smart trade policy, and standing up to the Chinese-controlled monopoly trying to protect their dominance by doing the minimum possible in the U.S. we can reshore the domestic solar supply chain, ensure the United States is clean energy independent, and secure a future for solar manufacturing in America that will benefit workers, businesses and the environment.

 Mike Carr is the executive director of the SEMA Coalition. Prior to joining SEMA, Carr served as the principal deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and the senior advisor to the director of energy policy and systems analysis at the U.S. Department of Energy from 2012 to 2015.  Prior to serving the President at DOE, Mike served as Senior Counsel to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources from 2004 to June 2012. He holds a law degree, with a Certificate of Specialization in Environmental and Natural Resources Law, from Lewis and Clark College and a Bachelor’s from the University of Colorado – Boulder.

Which solar inverter manufacturers are most financially stable?  Sinovoltaics, in its latest financial stability ranking of inverter manufacturers lists Hoymiles, Eaton and others at the top. 

Biden issues new proclamation on solar cell tariffs  Tariffs on solar cells remain, but volume increases from 5 GW to 12.5 GW.

What happens when solar is installed without homeowner’s permission A Connecticut couple and several companies including Sunrun have been sued by the state’s Attorney General for forging signatures, faking a voices, and unlawfully installing solar panels on a home without the owners’ consent.

Ebon Solar to invest nearly $1 billion in U.S. solar cell factory The solar cell manufacturing facility is to be located in New Mexico and expected to bring over 900 jobs to the area.

IRA 2-year anniversary: A look at its successes and failures David Burton, attorney with Norton Rose Fulbright and specialist in energy tax law, looks at tax credit transfer, domestic content, energy communities, prevailing wage and more.

SunPower goes bankrupt The company, one of the longest running solar companies in the U.S., spun off its manufacturing business in 2020 to focus more squarely on rooftop solar as demand surged. Since then, demand cooled considerably, and, under a high interest rate environment, the strategy proved fatal for the company.

Goldman Sachs invests $440 million in renewable independent power producer  The strategic investment in BrightNight will support the development of utility, commercial, and industrial solar and energy storage projects.

More money is going into solar than all other forms of generation combined, reaching $500 billion in 2024 The International Energy Agency projects that solar will attract more investment than all other electricity generation sources combined. Global energy spending is set to surpass $3 trillion for the first time this year.

Republicans request continuation of IRA post-January Eighteen Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives have urged House Speaker Mike Johnson to preserve the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) if their party takes control of the political reins in January.

Sunrun stock rises on strong cash generation in Q2 earnings The residential solar and energy storage provider increased its battery attachment rates and net subscriber value of its customers.

From pv magazine Global

A U.S.-Dutch research team has developed a novel bidding strategy for PV plant operators participating in electricity spot markets. It is based on turning probabilistic solar power forecasts into interdependent scenarios used in the multistage bedding strategy.

According to the researchers, the new method is able to provide increased revenues and reduced imbalances. “Accurate forecasts can assist in the timely scheduling of the dispatch of power generators and batteries, and therewith ensuring grid stability, while reducing the need for balancing reserves,” they said. “There is a lack of studies that develop and evaluate operational stochastic bidding strategies for electricity markets that consider PV systems and rely on probabilistic solar power forecasting models.”

The bidding strategy is designed to optimize bidding results, considering the uncertainty of PV power generation. It first aims to maximize revenues from the day-ahead market (DAM) by considering a set of scenarios, which are a range of possible power outputs. In order to achieve this goal, it used the Pinson method, a statistical technique that can transform probabilistic forecasts to scenarios that consider the interdependence structure of the prediction errors.

“The method was originally developed for the purpose of wind power forecasting and was later also successfully used for net load forecasting, i.e. demand subtracted with solar generation,” the academics explained.

Following the creation of several scenarios, a bid is generated by solving a few numerical problems. Then, corrections to the initial DAM bid are made in the intraday market (IM), using updated PV power forecasts. “The consequences of deviations in real-time are considered by the imbalance prices for up- and down-regulation,” added the team.

The scenarios made with the Pinson method were based on three probabilistic models – quantile regression (QR), quantile regression forest (QF) and clear sky persistence ensemble (CSPE). They were all benchmarked against point prediction methods, that provide a single predicted value for each period.

“The point forecasting models include a multi-variate linear regression (MLR), random forest regression (RF), physical PV and a smart (clear sky) persistence (SP) model,” the scientists explained. “Since these point forecasts do not provide any information regarding the uncertainty of the prediction, the potential monetary impact of an imbalance is not considered.”

All prediction mechanisms were then run on data manufactured from a simulation of a 1 MW system in Cabauw, the Netherlands. The analysis was based on real-measured global horizontal irradiance (GHI), ambient and dew point temperature, wind speed, and surface pressure from 2018 to 2020. The first two years of collected data were used to train the different prediction models, while 2020 was used for testing.

“Results show that the probabilistic forecasting models outperform the point models,” the scientists stressed. “Second, the results demonstrate the dominance of tree-based models, where the RF and QF models outperform all other DA and ID point and probabilistic models, respectively. The findings indicate that the proposed method outperforms the reference method, yielding higher revenues and causing less imbalance.”

Also, the analysis showed that expanding market participation from the DAM to the IM results in increased revenues. “Considering the best-performing model per forecast horizon, revenues increase with 22.3% from € 22,000  ($ 23,900) /MW to € 27,000 /MW per year when DAM trades are updated with IM trades,” they concluded. “Similarly, the imbalance caused almost halves, by -46.8%.”

Their findings were presented in “Probabilistic solar power forecasting: An economic and technical evaluation of an optimal market bidding strategy,” published on Applied Energy. The group included researchers from Utrecht University, Wageningen University, and the University of California, San Diego.

Dawsonville, Georgia motorsports club Atlanta Motorsports Park announced it is installing solar to support its operations.

Atlanta Motorsports club hosts an F1-style road course and a karting course. The company is expected to power about 60% of its operations with the new solar project, designed and set to be installed by Hannah Solar. Five buildings will be powered by the array. The project is expected to complete installation in Q3 2024.

“The ability to generate over half of our energy needs through solar pushes us closer to our vision of making AMP’s campus its own self-sustaining community and resort,” said chief executive officer Jeremy Porter.

The array contains 747 panels with 480 W power, adding 358 kW solar onsite. This is the equivalent power demand of about 300 homes.

The investment follows on the motorsports club’s investment in electric vehicle charging, including ten level 3 DC superchargers, and eight level 2 chargers. The company has also installed all LED lighting, solar powered CCTV/Signs, on site water/wastewater treatment, and efficient fixtures.

Hannah Solar procured solar panels for the project from Qcells, which operates a large solar panel manufacturing facility locally in Georgia.

The installation can generate 450,300 kWh of electricity annually, offsetting an estimated 7,312 pounds of CO2 emissions over a 30-year period. This offset is equivalent to eliminating over 16.6 million miles of road vehicle travel, or akin to planting 109,600 trees, based on an impact estimating tool from the Environmental Protection Agency.

The project was able to recoup 50% of its total costs through the a grant from the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Energy for America Program Renewable Energy Systems (REAP) program. The program provides guaranteed loan financing and grant funding to agricultural producers and rural small businesses for renewable energy systems or to make energy efficiency improvements. Agricultural producers may also apply for new energy efficient equipment and new system loans for agricultural production and processing.

$500 billion into solar in 2024 The International Energy Agency projects that solar will attract more investment than all other electricity generation sources combined. Global energy spending is set to surpass $3 trillion for the first time this year.

Generac acquires microgrid controller specialist Ageto The company previously known for generators and battery backup systems, moves further into the C&I market with the acquisition of Ageto.

U.S. startup develops 28%-efficient perovskite-silicon tandem solar module PeroNova specializes in metal halide perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells made with its novel stability-enhancing interfacial treatment. It is targeting a range of applications including space and rooftop markets.

New battery sizing approach for virtual synchronous generators, control-based grid-forming inverters A group of researchers outlined a new methodology to determine the minimum power rating of energy storage systems (ESSs) used for emergency under-frequency response. The ESS size must be calculated to maintain the frequency within the standard operating range.

Liquid metal battery storage specialist Ambri emerges from restructuring After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the calcium-antimony liquid metal battery startup incubated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has now confirmed the closing of the sale of its assets.

Solar array installed for mission to Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa The Europa Clipper mission will send a craft the size of a basketball court to Europa, a moon considered a potential habitat for life.

Goldman Sachs invests $440 million in renewable independent power producer The strategic investment in BrightNight will support the development of utility, commercial, and industrial solar and energy storage projects.

Generac Power Systems, known for its generators, battery backup and other power products, has acquired Ageto, a provider of microgrid controllers.

Ageto, based in Fort Collins, Colorado, developed the ARC microgrid controller, designed to integrate, optimize and manage distributed conventional resources, renewable energy resources and electric vehicle (EV) chargers in the commercial & industrial (C&I) market. Its controller provides a single interface for monitoring all components of a microgrid, the company reports.

“This acquisition enhances our ability to offer a complete energy technology ecosystem to domestic commercial & industrial customers with multi-asset sites,” said Erik Wilde, EVP and president, Domestic C&I at Generac. “By integrating Ageto’s industry-leading microgrid controller and advanced software into our systems, we’re simplifying asset integration, control and optimization for our customers and creating a competitive advantage for Generac.”

Generac has worked with Ageto since 2021, incorporating its microgrid controllers into Generac’s battery energy storage systems (BESS) solutions and generator sets. The transaction closed on August 1, 2024. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Generac was recently named a leader by Wood Mackenzie in the residential solar-plus-storage market. Not so long ago, Generac specialized in fossil-fuel based generators but it has fast become a leader in residential clean energy. PWRcell is its residential storage product, and coupled with the Concerto platform that is part of Generac Grid Services, it provides a distributed energy resource management system (DERMS) that is designed to detect spikes in demand, signaling to the the batteries to automatically dispatch clean energy based on real-time grid conditions. 

Generac signed on with Southern California Edison (SCE) as a virtual power plant participant, using this solution to scale the utility’s Power Flex program.

Generac first stepped into the commercial and industrial (C&I) market when it acquired PowerPlay Battery Energy Storage Systems, an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) firm. PowerPlay specializes in turnkey battery energy storage systems for commercial and industrial customers, with systems sized up to 7 MWh. Generac said the acquisition will help the company offer a more complete ecosystem of products and solutions to C&I customers.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that investment in solar photovoltaics will exceed $500 billion in 2024, surpassing the combined investment in all other electricity generation sources.

According to the World Energy Investment 2024 report from the IEA, total energy spending, including fuels and infrastructure, will exceed $3 trillion for the first time this year. Of that, $2 trillion will be directed toward clean energy technologies.

Clean energy technology investments are rising globally, with China leading the way, but significant increases in spending are evident across all continents. Overall, investment in renewable electricity generation is expected to reach a moderate $770 billion.

The $770 billion figure is considered “moderate” because the precipitous drop in solar panel prices has slowed the dollar increase in solar investment, even as capacity continues to grow rapidly. The chart above shows that more money is going into solar than all other forms of generation combined, reaching $500 billion in 2024.

The IEA notes that in 2023, each dollar invested in wind and solar PV yielded 2.5 times more energy output than a dollar spent on the same technologies a decade ago.

Globally, fossil fuel generation investments are projected to reach $80 billion for new generation facilities, with coal investment falling by 30% and gas decreasing by 8% compared to 2023 levels. The largest portion of the overall $3 trillion will be spent on fuel purchases, nearly $1.1 trillion, with only a small single-digit percentage going to low-emission fuels.

Investment in wind is expected to reach $200 billion, nuclear could touch $80 billion, which is double its 2018 investments. Battery storage is projected to reach $50 billion.

Private household investment in energy doubled from 9% of the total in 2015 to 18% at the end of 2023, driven largely by spending on rooftop solar, building efficiency, and electric vehicles. Since 2016, households have accounted for “40% of the increase in investment in clean energy spending,” which the IEA says is the largest share by far. Advanced economies saw 60% of their growth coming from private decisions, bolstered by strong policy support.

The moderating effect of falling hardware prices for solar panels, energy storage, and, to a lesser extent, wind turbines, has significantly offset the increased cost of capital.

Even with increased capital costs, and while hardware manufacturers face financial challenges, renewable projects themselves are seeing improved profitability. The IEA reports that returns on investment capital increased by one-third in 2023 compared to the previous year, due to the declining costs of hardware. The decrease in solar module prices on its own has lowered the projected levelized cost of electricity for solar power facilities by 5%, with energy storage projects experiencing even greater payback improvements due to their own price collapses.

Rethinking renewable energy control systems to create a smarter grid  New cloud computing technology can leverage industrial IoT protocols and extend the capabilities of SCADA with a software-first approach.

Nextracker posts 50% year-over-year revenue growth The solar tracker manufacturer increased its fiscal Q1 2025 revenue to $720 million, up from the previous year’s revenue of $480 million.

IEA PVPS certifies that floating PV systems have small carbon footprint Floating systems cause slightly more CO2 emissions than land-based solar systems, mainly because of the additional components for the structure. But overall, they also perform very well from a climate perspective.

Students from University of Michigan win solar car race The eight-day Electrek American Solar Challenge 2024 created three new champion solar car teams with the student-run University of Michigan team coming in first, followed by Canada’s École de technologie supérieure and the Illinois State University solar car team.

Chinese solar cell prices fall amid oversupply In a new weekly update for pv magazine, OPIS, a Dow Jones company, provides a quick look at the main price trends in the global PV industry.

The evolving art and science of agrivoltaics At Bluewave, integrating solar technology with traditional farming practices isn’t just a concept, it’s the new standard. Jesse Robertson-DuBois, director of sustainable solar development, shares insights on the transformative journey of agrivoltaics within the industry.

Renewables “cheaper and faster” than methane, says nation’s largest utility NextEra’s Q2 2024 quarterly earnings report shows significant growth in the company’s renewable pipeline. However, the group, which is typically exacting, refused to put a hard number on their future demand growth expectations.

Battery fire shuts down California highway A utility-scale battery delivery overturned on a highway after the truck carrying the batteries collided with a car, overcorrected, tipped to the side and dumped its cargo, leading to a fire that lasted more than 24 hours.

Bill aims to cut 45X tax credits for Chinese solar makers While the lucrative tax credits has attracted clean energy manufacturers from around the world to build factories in the U.S., the fact that many of the new manufacturing facilities are from Chinese companies has created a controversy that this new bill aims to solve.

Massive 900 MW solar project designed to preserve agricultural land Brookfield Renewable Partners filed a notice of intent for a 900 MW solar project in Oregon that will be installed in ribbons along the edge of a field to allow for continued agricultural use of the land

From pv magazine Global

Throughout July, smoke from wildfires in Canada and the US West Coast significantly impacted irradiance across North America, while Hurricane Beryl and upper atmospheric conditions delivered unstable cloud cover across the central and eastern United States.

Analysis using the Solcast API shows that the combined effects of reduced clearsky irradiance from smoke-related aerosols and cloud cover led to irradiance levels as low as 80% of long-term July averages along the Gulf Coast, East Coast, and the Midwest. In contrast, stable atmospheric conditions on the West Coast resulted in increased irradiance, extending across the Rockies as far as West Texas.

Whilst the fires raged, atmospheric aerosols have blown east and south, across the continent. Aerosols impact irradiance by scattering and absorbing radiation in the atmosphere, and reduce solar generation even on a day with no clouds. Peak ‘aerosol optical depth’, a measure of the impact of aerosols on irradiance, shows where the aerosol impact was strongest, and that smoke impacted all of the continent.

The below analysis of clearsky irradiance (a measure of irradiance before cloud or other weather phenomena) down up to 20% in some regions of Canada close to the fires, shows the large areas impacted as the smoke spreads through the atmosphere. Whilst in a normal month the impact of clouds and weather is much higher than that of aerosols, the intensity of this impact across July is reflected in the clearsky irradiance and the overall GHI.

In addition to the fires, a strong upper-atmosphere dipole created clear and stable conditions on the West Coast and unstable, cloudy conditions on the East Coast. This led to irradiance levels 10-20% above long-term averages in parts of British Columbia, Washington State, California, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Western Texas. While these clear conditions exacerbated the wildfires, prevailing westerly winds prevented the smoke from significantly impacting these states. Conversely, the same atmospheric conditions led to instability on the East Coast, reducing irradiance in the Carolinas, Virginia, and parts of New England. Hurricane Beryl further affected irradiance, casting a large shadow over the Gulf Coast and South-East early in the month.

Solcast produces these figures by tracking clouds and aerosols at 1-2km resolution globally, using satellite data and proprietary AI/ML algorithms. This data is used to drive irradiance models, enabling Solcast to calculate irradiance at high resolution, with typical bias of less than 2%, and also cloud-tracking forecasts. This data is used by more than 300 companies managing over 150GW of solar assets globally.

California faces public safety power shutoffs, wildfires and heat waves that “increasingly trigger outages across the state,” creating a “pressing need” to support increased community resilience, says a research paper.

To help meet its climate resilience needs, the state could add rooftop solar and storage to about 20,000 schools, community centers and places of worship, creating what the authors call “resilience hubs.”

Resilience hubs could provide clean, cool air for those “who might otherwise die” in heat waves or smoke events, the study says, adding that the elderly and those with chronic health conditions are particularly vulnerable to heat waves.

Each site could, as a baseline, add an amount of solar-plus-storage that is economically optimal for everyday use, such that it could be financed, perhaps with state loan guarantees. Across all the sites, 5.5 GW of rooftop solar and 1.8 GW of storage could be financed to power everyday operations. In an emergency, if grid power is available, the sites could provide smoke-free, conditioned air for 40% of California’s 39 million people, and also power communication and medical devices, the study projected.

Increasing the rooftop solar to nearly the 8 GW maximum potential across all sites and increasing storage would increase resilience capacity. Because that increased capacity could not be financed at current electric rates, it would require grant funding, incentives, or more favorable rate designs.

The community sites considered could only partially help the state meet its needs for resilient power, the study found.

The nonprofit PSE Healthy Energy, which employs most of the study’s authors, said on a landing page for the study that resilience hubs are unlike emergency cooling centers as they are “built in trusted community spaces and provide resilience-building services on an ongoing basis,” such as helping vulnerable communities “to address underlying risk factors and improve resilience to disaster over time.”

Hybrid systems

The study evaluated resilience hubs powered by solar-plus-storage, but acknowledged that hybrid systems that add fossil generation “may be more economical, particularly when high levels of resilience are required.” Even so, fuel-based backup requires regular testing and maintenance, they study says, citing research finding that half of poorly-maintained generators fail within 48 hours during a long-duration outage.

The study used the REopt model, developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in its analysis of the solar-plus-storage potential at the community buildings it considered.

The open-access study, published in the journal Risk Analysis, is titled “Modeling and design of solar + storage-powered community resilience hubs across California.”

With the hike in energy costs, many homeowners are looking for ways to save money on utility bills. While there are some obvious changes you can make – like turning off lights in empty rooms – believe it or not, there are many lesser-known things you can do to make a greater impact on your energy consumption.

Looking to expedite savings? Here are a few ways to make efficiency-minded changes at home that reduce energy bills now – and in the future.

Lowering the temperature and heating smarter

One of the biggest energy guzzlers in the home is heating, accounting for 50-60% of a household’s total energy costs. So, it’s no surprise that this is one of the main areas people focus on when looking to reduce energy. But how do you do this without compromising on comfort?

Lots of us tend to leave the heating on in rooms we aren’t using, or due to the way in which the system is built, have to heat the whole house, which leads to higher energy bills. But we wouldn’t leave the lights on in every room when empty, or leave the taps running, so why do we not take this approach with our heating?

There are many types of heating controls that can be programmed and personalized to your needs. As noted in recent research from UK-based BEAMA, upgrading from basic heating controls to a multi-zone smart heating system, where you heat rooms individually, can offer savings of over 30% on the average heating and hot water bill.

Additionally, intelligent thermostats can now detect when a window is open and automatically pause the heating. Even better, the latest home technology learns your behaviors to ensure you maximize energy savings without compromising on comfort.

Slaying vampire devices

Most of us are guilty of leaving devices plugged in when we’ve finished using them, but did you know that even on standby mode they consume electricity?

Yes – 23% of a household’s electricity is wasted by ‘vampire’ devices, appliances that consume lots of energy even when on standby mode. This includes gaming consoles, televisions, and smart speakers, just to name a few. Ensuring that they’re switched off helps limit unnecessary costs, but instead of manually having to go around your home to turn appliances off, smart plugs can make saving easier.

A smart plug can be easily turned on and off from a smartphone app, and some even allow you to set schedules for your appliances too. That means that if your plans suddenly change and a vampire device is still plugged in, you can easily disable it remotely, so you won’t have an eye-watering energy bill to come home to.

Automate your energy use

Homes are becoming highly complex energy environments, with tens or even hundreds of electrical devices all running at once. But very few of us have the expertise, time or desire to constantly check that we’re following good energy habits.

That is where home energy management systems (HEMS) come in. With the ability to automate all aspects of your energy – from production through consumption – they can help to lower energy bills.

One of the larger electrical loads commonly found in homes, in fact, are EV chargers. With electric vehicle sales increasing 35% year-over-year in 2023, more of us are installing EV chargers in our homes for easy, convenient charging. However, these chargers are one of the largest electrical loads, which can bump up your energy bills.

With a HEMS, the timing of your charge can automatically be shifted to, for example, run during the night when the utility costs are lowest. Additionally, a HEMS is great for homes powered by renewables, such as solar panels. Solar panels have the capability to generate surplus energy, and a HEMS can help you manage this extra power in a simple, cost- effective way.

The first is storing the excess in a home battery which you will then be able to use for things like charging your EV instead of using electricity from the grid. Additionally, you could also use the stored energy in the event of a power outage.

Alternatively, the surplus may be sold back to the grid, to be used in exchange for payment or credits contributing to greater saving on your electricity bills. By making your home efficient and energy secure, all from the push of a button, smart energy apps and home energy management systems can help reduce consumption by 7%.

Michael Lotfy Gierges is executive vice president for the Home & Distribution division at Schneider Electric. ​In this role, he is responsible for all aspects of Schneider Electric’s residential & small buildings offerings and solution development. 

There has been considerable discussion recently about the growth in power grid demand in the United States, following roughly two decades of relatively minimal growth. This anticipated increase in demand is largely driven by electricity-hungry artificial intelligence chips. The conversation about the resources required to power these data warehouses varies by region; in the southeast U.S., it primarily centers around new methane facilities, whereas Texas is focused on expanding solar, wind, and battery storage, supplemented by substantial existing gas resources. In contrast, California is actively pursuing new clean energy deals.

In NextEra’s second-quarter earnings call, the company reported its second-best renewable energy origination quarter ever, with the addition of more than 3 GW of renewables and storage projects to their project backlog. When including wind repowering alongside new wind, solar, and storage projects, the company expects to deploy between 36.5 and 46.5 GW of new capacity from 2024 to 2027.

As the nation’s largest clean energy developer, NextEra generates revenue from methane, pipelines, wind, solar, storage, nuclear, and coal, with approximately half of their revenue coming from fossil fuels. However, the company’s strategic discussions indicate a shift towards prioritizing solar plus storage over methane for future generation leadership.

John Ketchum, the company’s President and CEO, stated:

This marks our second best origination quarter ever. These results support our belief that the bulk of the growth demand will be met by a combination of renewables and battery storage…we also are well aware of the realities of new build gas-fired generation, it’s more expensive in most states, is subject to fuel price volatility and takes considerable time to deploy given the need to get gas delivered to the generating unit and the three to four year waiting period for gas turbines.

The company, known for its meticulous attention to detail and a dedicated mathematics department, has been reluctant to provide specific growth projections. Some analysts believe that the actual increase in electricity demand will be much less pronounced than what headlines may imply. The ambiguous statements from NextEra may also indicate that the company anticipates more moderate growth rates.

For example, instead of specifying the anticipated growth, the company stated, “NextEra expects power demand to grow four times faster over the next decades compared to the prior 20 years.” This statement raises questions, particularly regarding the company’s definition of “next decades” and the baseline of minimal demand growth over the past two decades.

Source: Statista

Regarding the total renewables to be deployed, NextEra is a bit more exacting, and optimistic. The company highlighted the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s projections, which suggest that renewable and storage additions will deploy three times faster in the next seven years compared to the previous seven. Additionally, NextEra noted that their overall project pipeline has reached 300 GW of capacity, representing a 20% increase over last year’s figure of 250 GW.

The company expects to deploy 7.1 GW of solar power in 2024-2025, followed by an additional 6.1 GW in 2026-2027. Over a third of this capacity will be deployed in the southeast, with Florida driving much of that growth. The Midwest region will represent nearly another third of the solar deployment capacity during the same period.

“We’ve dug in deep on agrivoltaics, it’s now our default option for land use in our solar arrays,” Jesse Robertson-DuBois, Director of Sustainable Development at Bluewave, told pv magazine USA.

“The first approach on a project is ‘How can we accommodate agrivoltaics?’ It’s the first thing we do in development. Sometimes that turns out to be cropping, sometimes it’s sheep grazing, sometimes cattle – and sometimes we won’t have a good food related option, so we go to pollinators,” Robertson-DuBois explained.

Agrivoltaic solar power energy facilities are beginning to deliver on their promise. Despite organized public opposition to large solar plants, projects spanning 1,000 acres are successfully being integrated into regional agricultural practices. Polling indicates that public dissatisfaction tends to increase with solar facilities larger than 100 megawatts, while even smaller installations around 50 acres, or approximately 10 megawatts, can also attract negative attention.

Robertson-DuBois has a rich background in agriculture and farmland policy. He owns a farm in western Massachusetts where his daughter grazes sheep. Engaged in diversified agriculture for most of his life, he recently shared his enthusiasm for spending a weekend working with hay and vegetables on a farm near his home.

In the early stages of developing a new facility, Robertson-DuBois prioritizes building a trusting relationship with the farmer. This mutual trust is crucial as they navigate the evolving aspects of the project. A key part of their discussions involves identifying which pieces of farm equipment are essential for ongoing operations and which can be replaced or modified as project details are finalized.

For instance, in a project in Western Massachusetts, Bluewave opted to replace a tractor and a hay machine rather than modifying the entire array. The driveline of the Array Technologies solar tracking system (similar to a vehicle’s driveshaft and circled in red in the image above) was initially positioned lower than the height of those machines. Although it had already been raised to 10 feet above the ground to comply with Massachusetts agrivoltaic regulations, further elevating it to accommodate the farm equipment would have quadrupled the steel costs. This expense far exceeded the cost of replacing the machines.

From the collection of five agrivoltaic projects in Massachusetts, for which Bluewave raised $91 million, one is fully operational both agriculturally and in terms of solar power generation. The site supports cattle grazing, which has shown minimal impact on the animals. “They started grazing this spring, the grass growth and productivity are good. The cattle are loving the shade. They graze in one area, then move back under the modules, then move to the next grazing area,” noted Robertson-DuBois, before reminding us that the American Solar Grazing Association reports that over 100,000 acres of solar installations are grazed by various animals.

State programs are increasingly supporting agrivoltaic power plants. The SMART program in Massachusetts, initiated in 2018, offers up to six cents per kilowatt-hour for agrivoltaic projects. Meanwhile, newcomers like New Jersey and New York are exploring their own initiatives. Notably, the New York agrivoltaic pilot program is focusing on more challenging farming opportunities. Unlike ‘standard’ agrivoltaic technologies like sheep grazing or supporting pollinators, New York’s program is incentivizing the integration of agrivoltaics with livestock such as cows and even cannabis cultivation.

Robertson-DuBois explained in the Northeast U.S., designing solar trackers to withstand heavy snow loads typically results in a structure robust enough to accommodate cattle using them as scratching posts. The key, he noted, is to move certain less rugged pieces of hardware like wiring and combiner boxes out of reach.

When discussing the integration of solar power with soy cultivation – America’s second largest crop – Robertson-DuBois delved into the specifics:

Soy [has] absolutely, huge potential. It’s a bush crop, where the outer leaves on the plant are really there to protect the inside leaves. Soy has what is called what is a long photoresponse period; when exposed to too much light, the stomata close, shutting off photosynthesis. Then the soybeans kinda sit there saying ‘I don’t know if I’m ready yet’. At Bluewave, we’ve been watching research that reduces this photoresponse time and increase photosynthesis.

Robertson-DuBois also noted the viability of other grains like wheat, barley, and oats. While grain corn, which can easily grow over 12 feet in height, presents more challenges, sweet corn, intended for human consumption, is considerably shorter at 7-8 feet and might be more suitable.

Robertson-DuBois says that focusing on the farm and the farmer’s needs, as well as the impact on the local community, is crucial for advancing projects. When deploying solar on a hundred year old wild blueberry farm, Jesse and his team practiced building techniques that preserved the existing vegetation.

At Bluewave’s Deighton, Massachusetts facility, where grazing and vegetable cultivation are combined, Bluewave implemented careful construction practices to protect the soil from compaction and preserve organic material.

“Building trust with the community, understanding the farm, and putting real projects in the field – with real challenges being solved – that are [spread over] tens of acres is how Bluewave is moving forward in agrivoltaics,” Robertson-DuBois stated.

A flourishing new market has grown out of the key policy changes set forth by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022, making more capital available for clean energy developers. The IRA created a pathway for clean energy developers to sell their federal tax credits to third parties in exchange for cash, thereby accelerating investment. The first transactions under this new provision occurred in January 2023.

Tax credit transfer marketplace operator Crux released a mid-year Market Intelligence Report, noting a larger-than-expected market for tax credit sales in 2024. Crux tracked $6.8 billion specific transactions in the first half of 2024, corresponding to an estimated $9 billion to $11 billion of transactions closed so far this year nationwide. 

Crux said that by year’s end, U.S. clean energy tax credit transactions will total $20 billion to $25 billion.

The marketplace operator said that established technologies accounted for most of the transactions this year, with wind, utility-scale solar, energy storage, and advanced manufacturing credits accounting for 95% of the reported deals. Crux said that in the second half of 2024, distributed generation, residential solar projects, additional 45X manufacturing credits, and “renewable” natural gas (RNG) may participate and contribute to an even larger market size.

Solar had the largest share in supply of tax credits available, representing about 41% of the total. Solar and storage hybrid projects represented another 9% of total tax credit supply.

Pricing for the first half was “strong” according to Crux, with average Production Tax Credit (PTC) deals fetching $0.95 per dollar of tax credit value, $0.925 for Investment Tax Credit (ITC). This compares to $0.94 and $0.92 respectively in 2023.

Average deal size reported by Crux was $55 million for ITC deals and $85 million for spot PTC deals. In 2023 average deal sizes were $20 million and $60 million, respectively. Despite this, pv magazine USA has reported on smaller tax credit deals being made, suggesting that there is an appetite for tax credit sales of all sizes.

Crux said that deal size and insurance continue to play dominant roles in market pricing. Small to mid-sized deals valued between $5 million and $25 million saw lower average pricing than the market overall with $0.937 for PTC and $0.918 for ITC on average. It said the use of insurance in ITC deals, though common, tends to be correlated with lower pricing compared to deals with parent indemnification, especially for deals lower than $25 million.

The marketplace provider said buyers are now beginning to look out to 2025 tax credit deals, with data indicating that forward commitments tend to transact at a one to three cent discount to 2024 deals. About 25% of 2024 reported deals included a forward component, including a full or partial purchase of future year tax credits, said Crux.

“This market has continued to grow in size, technological diversity, and depth, driving billions of dollars of new private sector investments into energy infrastructure and domestic manufacturing,” said Alfred Johnson, co-founder and chief executive officer of Crux. “These investments have created jobs and driven a new wave of American technological innovation. We are seeing new participants enter the market every month, market standards taking shape, and all facets of the market becoming more transparent and efficient.”

Residential solar company SunPower stock crashes 70% The company’s share price fell below $1 as it announced it is halting some operations and ending its lease and power purchase agreement offerings, among other actions.

How long do residential solar panels last? Multiple factors affect the productive lifespan of a residential solar panel. In the first part of this series, we look at the solar panels themselves.

U.S. Senators introduce comprehensive energy permitting reform act Joe Manchin (I-WV) and John Barrasso (R-WY) released the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024, promising to accelerate the permitting processes for energy and mineral projects of all types in the U.S.

WoodMac says global solar tracker shipments grew by 28% in 2023 Global tracker shipments reached 92 GWdc last year, according to WoodMackenzies’ latest report. The US accounted for the majority of the global market, with three US-based manufacturers, Nextracker, Array Technologies and GameChange Solar, ranking as the three largest shippers in the world.

Interview: My experience as a battery energy storage homeowner What is it like being a residential solar and energy storage prosumer living in California? Ahmad Faruqui, economist-at-large, shares his perspective with pv magazine USA .

From ESS News

Electric vehicle and energy storage maker Tesla initiated its Megafactory in Shanghai in December 2023 and completed the signing ceremony for land acquisition. Once delivered, the new plant will span an area of 200,000 square meters and come with a price tag of RMB 1.45 billion. This project, which marks its entry into the Chinese market, is a key milestone for the company’s strategy for the global energy storage market.

As demand for energy storage continues to grow, the China-based factory is expected to fill Tesla’s capacity shortage and become a major supply region for Tesla’s global orders. Moreover, as China has been the largest country with newly installed electrochemical energy storage capacity in recent years, Tesla is likely to enter the country’s storage market with its Megapack energy storage systems produced in Shanghai.

Tesla has been scaling up its energy storage business in China since the beginning of this year. The company announced its construction of the factory in Shanghai’s Lingang pilot free trade zone earlier in May, and signed a supply deal of eight Megapacks with Shanghai Lingang Data Center, securing the first batch of orders for its Megapacks in China.

Currently, China’s public auction for utility-scale projects saw fierce price competition. The quote for a two-hour utility-scale energy storage system is RMB 0.6-0.7/Wh ($0.08-0.09/Wh) as of June 2024. Tesla’s product quotes are not competitive against the Chinese manufacturers, but the company has rich experiences in global projects and a strong brand impact.

To continue reading, please visit our ESS News website.

From pv magazine Global

Global PV tracker shipments grew by 28% in 2023 to 92 GWdc, according to Wood Mackenzie’s Global solar PV tracker market share’ report 2024.

WoodMac’s analysis found the top 10 vendors accounted for 90% of the global market share. For the ninth consecutive year, US-based manufacturers Nextracker and Array Technologies took first and second place, with the former extending its lead position with 20% annual growth.

GameChange Solar, another US manufacturer, made it to third in the rankings for the first time thanks to 55% year-on-year growth. Together, the three companies accounted for more than 50% of global tracker shipments and 90% of the US market.

The US is the world’s largest individual market for PV trackers. It experienced 10% year-on-year growth last year, to over 37 GWdc of shipments. WoodMac says the market was buoyed by Inflation Reduction Act incentives which kickstarted construction for many new large-scale projects across the country.

In contrast, China’s tracker market fell to 4.3 GWdc in 2023. WoodMac says Chinese manufacturers experienced much higher demand for fixed-tilt products, as low installation costs were a main drivers for developers in China. Despite the drop in demand, Chinese manufacturers TrinaTracker and Archtech climbed into the global top six of tracker shipments, as they expanded their regional presence in the Middle East, central Asia and Latin America.

The largest European market was Spain, representing more than 50% of the continent’s demand. Spanish manufacturers PV Hardware, Solar Steel, Soltec and Axial all feature in the global top ten of tracker shippers.

The $7 billion Solar for All program administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) seeks to support solar, storage and energy efficiency projects that benefit low-income and disadvantages communities. A panel of stakeholders at last week’s RE+ Mid-Atlantic conference in Philadelphia discussed how the program that aims to expand access to solar faces pending deadlines, possible shifting political winds and complications arising from its compliance requirements.

Solar for All is an aspect of the EPA’s $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund made possible by changes in the Clean Air Act authorized under the IRA. In this sense, the allotment is a creation of the Biden Administration and the RE+ panelists were cognizant of a potential change in administration coming next year. Although as signed legislation, the IRA has the force of law, individual provisions and allotments, particularly those originating from rule changes in federal agencies, that could be affected by new priorities.

Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), a key sponsor of the conference, noted in her introductory remarks that she was fresh from the Republican convention in Milwaukee and found a substantial cadre of support for renewable energy there. At the same time, she indicated prudence dictates that the solar industry should “regime proof” the money Solar for All makes available.

In her role as moderator of the Solar for All panel discussion, Hopper identified the importance of the looming September 30 deadline for the 60 state, tribal and non-profit entities selected by the EPA to contract with developers for specific projects.

“You might pick up that September 30th is six weeks before Election Day,” Hopper said, stressing the deadline was critically important for the durability of the program. “Making sure those funds are obligated will ensure that they continue regardless of what happens at Election Day.”

Maryrose Myrtetus, executive director of Philadelphia Green Capital Corp., which partners with the Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority for the $156 million grant for the state, said the key goal now was to get the money under contract and obligated to make sure that the funding is set aside and secured for the work.

“We’re all working with the EPA right now to get contracts in place by that deadline,” Myrtetus said, adding means vetting installers to make sure they are technically competent, have the right background, are properly insured and provide for consumer protections.

“Some standards that we have include ensuring that consumers can save money starting in year one when they go solar, limiting the escalator on a lease price or [point of total assumption] price, insurance requirements for third party owners and on,” she said.

This means Philadelphia Green Capital will be running an aggressive request for proposal process in the fall to meet the deadline.

Easier said than done. Solar for All’s mandate to serve low- and moderate-income communities as well as neighborhoods disadvantaged by legacy fossil-fuel generation due to pollution and other factors has placed an emphasis on community and distributed solar and storage projects. Such projects are often more complicated than single-family and commercial installations in terms of local permitting, siting, interconnection and managing off-takers. It is not surprising that the panel featured Solar for All grantees with community and multi-family dwelling solar expertise.

Meghan Jennings, distributed energy resources specialist at Rappahannock Electric Cooperative, said her non-profit utility is partnering with Groundswell to provide the sort of experience it needs to not just to develop effective community solar projects but to build in grid resiliency, outage services and other functions to support ratepayers.

Chris Walker, vice president of policy and programs for GRID Alternatives, a multi-state non-profit administering nearly $250 million in program funds, says his organizations’ history developing solar for low-income homeowners in partnership with Habitat for Humanity and other groups will serve as foundational experience for moving forward under Solar for All.

“We thought the affordable housing sector was an important partnership type to pursue, given that there’s also an intersecting housing crisis together with a climate crisis and affordability crisis in the need to really give folks some relief in terms of how much their incomes are paying for their utility costs,” Walker said.

Intensions are good and experience matters, however there are certain unavoidable aspects to using funds under Solar for All. Perhaps more important than acquiring experience in the low-income and community solar markets is finding ways to navigate the labyrinthine requirements for using federal money.

Kristal Virgil, senior vice president at Groundswell Inc., selected as a multi-state non-profit to administer $156 million in EPA grants in the Southeast, said the federal source of the funding triggers a number of compliance issues, including the Davis-Bacon Act that mandates how contractors are paid and compensated, and the Build America/Buy America Act (BABA) that requires U.S.-source products (with a few exceptions, such as electronics) and construction materials used for infrastructure projects funded by the IRA.

“We’re currently in the process of working on a position description now for general counsel to be added to Groundswell’s team because there are several compliance responsibilities that we’re going to need to take on,” Virgil said. “There’s a lot of complexity that we’re currently navigating through and looking to partner with experts. We’re going to need legal and accounting and a robust compliance manager.”

This complexity underscores the reality that Solar for All is not just a $7 billion resource ready to be tapped for solar. It can only be accessed according to very specific procedures. The fact is, there are extremely few contractors and suppliers that are Davis-Bacon and BABA-compliant. This threatens to create monopolies or simply immovable blocks to Solar for All projects.

All in all, the compliance issues facing those entities selected to administer funds under Solar for All appear more pressing than the technical problems attending solar development for low-income households. And the clock is ticking.

The Loan Programs Office of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has made a conditional commitment for a loan guarantee for up to $861 million to finance construction of solar-plus-storage projects and standalone storage projects in Puerto Rico.

The project developer and prospective borrower, Clean Flexible Energy LLC, is an indirect subsidiary of AES Corporation (AES) and TotalEnergies Holdings USA, Inc., and is managed under a joint venture agreement between the two.

The planned facilities, located in the municipalities of Guayama and Salinas, include two sites encompassing 200 MW of solar co-located with 285 MW of 4-hour batteries (1.14 GWh). Two other standalone battery storage sites would have a storage capacity not disclosed by DOE.

Puerto Rico currently has 154 MW of utility-scale solar, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The U.S. territory’s distributed solar capacity reached 842 MW by April this year, while residential storage has reached 1.6 GWh. The consultancy Wood Mackenzie has projected that over the next ten years more than 90% of Puerto Rico’s solar additions will be distributed solar.

Puerto Rico’s Act 17 calls for reaching 40% renewable generation by 2025—a target that is now very challenging to meet—and to reach 60% by 2040 and 100% by 2050.

Puerto Rico’s technical potential for utility-scale solar ranges from 14.2 GW under a “less land” scenario to 44.7 GW under a “more land” scenario, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s “PR 100” summary report published early this year. A technical potential analysis does not consider the financial viability of projects.

To secure the loan guarantee, Clean Flexible Energy LLC must first satisfy certain technical, legal, environmental, and financial conditions before DOE enters into definitive financing documents.

AES operates 19 GW of renewables capacity globally as part of its 35 GW generating portfolio, according to an investor presentation. AES also operates electric utilities.

TotalEnergies aims to reach 28 GW of installed renewable capacity globally this year, according to an investor presentation. The firm is also involved in fossil fuel production, refining and sales and electricity generation.

Elastocalorics could replace heat pumps, air conditioning systems Elastocalorics have the potential to replace current air conditioning and heating systems, offering significant energy savings when paired with technologies such as photovoltaics.

First Solar probes potential infringement of TOPCon patents First Solar says it is evaluating potential infringement of its patents for its TOPCon tech, secured through the acquisition of TetraSun in 2013. The U.S. thin-film solar module manufacturer has not named the companies involved or given a timeline for the investigation.

The Energy Information Administration reported in its monthly electric power industry report that battery adoption rates are rising among solar customers in California.

In October 2023, about 20% of California solar shoppers opted to include a battery energy storage system in their installation. In April 2024, that number has climbed to over 50%.

The change to battery-included systems is largely due to the transition to Net Energy Metering 3.0, a regulatory structure that decreased the amount paid to customers for sending solar production directly to the grid. Due to an hourly mismatch of peak solar production and peak electricity demand, regulators shifted compensation rates to place an emphasis on storing and dispatching solar generated electricity when it is needed the most.

A 50% or greater battery attachment rate is a significant change for the state’s solar industry. Solar-plus-battery systems make up about 9% of all installed residential net metering capacity in California. Over 40,000 new systems were added between October 2023 and April 2024, accounting for 232 MW of new battery storage capacity in the state, said EIA.

While NEM 3.0 achieved its intended effect of encouraging more battery installations, the rulemaking decision was unpopular with solar advocates. The change increased the overall sticker price for installing solar, and while you get the added benefit of battery backup during outages, the amount of time it will take to breakeven on a solar investment in California has increased. This has led to a decline in installations, with Q1 2024 having the lowest installed capacity in a quarter since 2021 with a little over 300 MW of solar installed.

California now has more than 12,000 MW of installed solar capacity in residential net metering systems smaller than 1 MW. Residential installations account for more than 70% of installed net metering capacity, and about one-third of total installed solar capacity in the state.

“Our data show that during the third quarter of 2023, 83,376 new residential net metering photovoltaic systems were installed, compared with 70,152 systems connected under the old NEM 2.0 rule during the same period in 2022. However, we cannot differentiate the systems that requested to be grandfathered to NEM 2.0,” said EIA.

The first quarter of 2024 saw an additional 46,631 systems installed. Since January 2022, an average of 21,000 solar systems were added every month.

Generac Power Systems announced it has been awarded a grant of up to $200 million over a five year term by the Department of Energy to install distributed solar and energy storage systems in Puerto Rico.

The funds come as part of the $1 billion Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund. Under the program’s Solar Access Fund, Generac will facilitate the installation of residential solar and storage for disadvantaged Puerto Rican households. Installations are expected to begin in August 2024.

The projects are planned to be installed in low-income areas that experience frequent and prolonged power outages as well as household where a resident has energy-dependent disability needs.

The program will also help Puerto Rico achieve its renewable energy and resilience goals. In 2017, when back-to-back hurricanes destroyed around 80% of Puerto Rico’s electric grid and resulted in thousands of lives lost, Puerto Rico passed Act 17, a policy to transition to 100% renewable energy by 2050.

“We’ve been providing reliable backup power solutions to the people of Puerto Rico for more than 20 years, including after Hurricane Maria devastated the island’s power grid and left 95% of residents without electricity,” said Aaron Jagdfeld, president and CEO at Generac. He added, “We are proud to be a recipient of this DOE grant to provide clean, resilient, efficient power for those who are often underserved during outages.”

Generac will be partnering with several companies on the program:

• PathStone, a nonprofit organization providing community and workforce development and humanitarian services in Puerto Rico since 1998 and the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC), a clean energy non-profit established in 1982 that leads groundbreaking community programs and market research, will together coordinate additional local community efforts to serve as liaisons between Solar Ambassadors, installers, and eligible recipients.
• FR-BLDM, a leading local contractor with years of government program management experience will lead installations working with other local, small, family-owned businesses in Puerto Rico.
• Juapi Energy, a PWRcell installer and Generac Service Dealer in Puerto Rico will provide service support to residents and will perform installations.
• Palmetto, a leading climate technology company accelerating the adoption of clean energy, will extend three of its commercial software applications: fintech platform, installation partner portal, and asset management services.

“Supporting local companies is an important part of our objective to provide reliable and sustainable
energy solutions to Puerto Rico’s most vulnerable communities,” said Norm Taffe, president of Energy Technology at Generac.

Distributed solar and storage programs in Puerto Rico have already shown some success. In May, residential solar company Sunrun said  it had enrolled nearly 1,800 customers and more than 2,000 batteries onto its PowerOn Puerto Rico program. Sunrun’s battery fleet dispatches stored solar energy from customers’ batteries to stabilize the grid and avoid blackouts and the use of fossil fuel power plants. Customers are compensated for their participation, with Sunrun predicting at least an average of $550 per customer. Sunrun expects that there will be between 50 and 125 events per year that will require Sunrun’s fleet of enrolled systems to provide on-demand energy, stabilizing the local grid.

Read more about the Department of Energy’s grid modernization programs.

After impressive installation growth rates of roughly 30% in 2021 and 2022, residential solar began to cool off in 2023 as high interest rates and policy changes challenged the value being offered to homeowners. In 2024, the market continues to weather the high interest rate storm, and numerous large installers have announced bankruptcies.

Phil Shen, managing director, Roth Capital Partners hosted a webinar featuring experts in the residential solar industry to provide a snapshot of the market as it moves through the summer sales cycle.

Data platform Ohm Analytics said it expects U.S. residential solar installations to be down 20% year over year in 2024 as the market adjusts to the rate environment and increasingly includes batteries in customer offerings. Roth reiterated the down 20% outlook.

As for 2025, Ohm Analytics expects the market to slowly recover. The company placed a 5% to 10% year over year growth forecast for installations next year, with 2026 forecast to grow at a similar rate. Fore a five year outlook, Ohm expects a “stable build” in the market.

The market should also expect a lift from the domestic content bonus within the Inflation Reduction Act, which makes projects eligible for a 10% tax credit adder if they meet requirements for including U.S.-made components in their project. Details of how this credit will be shared among financers, sales teams, installers, and customers are still being ironed out, but Shen noted that the credit makes a notable $0.50 per watt of value for residential customers.

Regionally, there are significant differences in growth, battery attachment rates, and technology being used.

For example, Matthew McFadden, owner and chief executive officer of SunnyMac Solar, shared that his firm, a solar sales platform serving New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland said business has been steady in 2024. Looking out to 2025, he expects this region to undergo at least 10% to 20% year on year growth, though he said this could be as much as doubled.

SunnyMac said its Mid-Atlantic region remains a low battery attachment rate market, with less than 1% of sales including battery energy storage. McFadden said this is set to change in 2025, as Maryland’s lucrative battery incentive program rolls out and legislation in New Jersey is developed. He said that battery attachment rates in New Jersey are expected to increase four to ten times next year.

McFadden said his team is also targeting expansion into western Pennsylvania, where nearly every community is designated as an Energy Community under the Inflation Reduction Act, potentially making projects eligible for a 10% tax credit adder on top of the base 30% investment tax credit.

SunnyMac said it is currently using about 95% SolarEdge inverters and 5% Enphase in its projects. McFadden said that this market share is likely to be ceded to Tesla as battery adoption rises, since Tesla’s Powerwall 3 offers an attractive low-cost bundle of battery storage and inverters.

For the Southwest and West, market dynamics are much different. Caleb Antonucci, chief executive officer of sales platform Our World Energy said its markets of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Texas said his firm’s sales were up 60% year-over-year. He said that as more smaller installers go bankrupt, firm’s like Our World Energy and SunnyMac are absorbing existing sales teams and growing.

The technology mix is much different in this region. Our World Energy has historically offered Enphase inverters in 100% of its projects, but market share has begun to turn over to Tesla. In Southwest markets, Tesla inverters are now about 20% of the market share, as they are offered as a low-cost bundle with the Powerwall 3 battery. Antonucci said that Tesla’s market share may grow to 50% in 2025, and may even grow to 90% or more in the coming years as it dominates SolarEdge and Enphase on cost.

Shen shared that Tesla inverters are priced at $0.05 per watt or less when bundled with storage, while SolarEdge inverters add about $0.24 per watt and Enphase roughly $0.30 per watt.

Antonucci expects flat growth for his region in 2025, and highlighted Colorado and Texas as leading markets. Battery incentive programs in Colorado are expected to drive growth. He said that sales teams are shifting their approaches to lead with battery energy storage and include solar as a bonus. Antonucci said demand will continue to grow as younger generations that have strong sentiments toward renewable energy begin to purchase homes and add solar. He said that a shift toward leased systems is helping establish revenue growth as well.

Overall, the panel recognized 2023 and 2024 as years of recovery, restructuring, and consolidation. As more federal and state incentives go online, and interest rates possibly cool by year’s end, there are several positive forces ahead.

Demand is expected to continue as well. Ohm Analytics highlighted a Forbes survey that showed 90% of home solar owners were satisfied with their system. Energy independence was listed as the main reason for going solar, while bill savings was the second most important benefit listed by respondents.

Polling from Resource for the Future (RFF) reveals that the popularity of solar power among the U.S. population has dropped to 83%, down from 91% in 2013.  During this period, the only energy source to see an increase in popularity was nuclear power, which rose by 11%. All other sources of electricity generation saw declines in public approval.

The poll, titled “American Understanding of Climate Change,” was conducted in collaboration with the Political Psychology Research Group at Stanford University and Resources for the Future (RFF). Polling data has remained relatively stable since 1997, when 77% of respondents said they believed Earth’s temperature “has probably been increasing” over the past 100 years. The figure peaked at 85%, dropped to 69% in 2016, and recently settled at 75%.

Over the same period, the percentage of people who believe the temperature will continue to increase over the next 100 years has remained steady at around 75%. Similarly, the proportion of those who believe human actions have contributed to global warming has hovered around 83%.

During this timeframe, global temperatures have risen by 0.6°C.

Over 80% of respondents believe global warming will be a very or somewhat serious problem for the world, while about 75% believe it will be a serious issue for the United States. This is a slight decrease from the mid-80% range in 1997.

The report also found that a consistent majority believes regular people, businesses and government should be doing “at least a moderate amount” to address global warming, with rates of 74%, 78% and 80%, respectively.

The decline in solar power popularity to the low 80% range aligns with data from the Pew Research Center. While specific data from New York and the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratories were not available, they likely show similar trends based on project size and location.

Pew’s data highlights a political divide in support for solar power in the U.S., with Democratic support remaining above 90%, while Republican support has fallen to 70%.

A New York state analysis also found that, on a scale from 1 to 5, rooftop solar has a support level of 4.47 versus 3.12 for utility scale solar. This disparity of opinion is fairly consistent across rural and urban areas of the diverse state.

The New York analysis also found that system size and siting has a significant impact on support. Community solar projects, described as distributed assets generally smaller than 50 acres and selling electricity to locals, have more support than larger utility-scale solar facilities over 50 acres.

The rooftop versus ground-based solar divide is so sharp in some areas that fossil fuel-funded “faux responsible solar” groups use it as a base for their outreach.

Mission Solar Energy, a solar panel manufacturer that recently has focused on the residential market, announced it has expanded its offerings with a new series of solar modules designed for commercial and industrial (C&I) and utility-scale project applications.

“Mission Solar Energy is excited to re-enter the C&I/Utility segment,” said Sam Martens, president of Mission Solar Energy. “We have a history in this space having launched our company by supplying to utility scale projects in 2014.”

The new modules include:

545-555 W PERC Transparent Backsheet Bifacial
540-550 W PERC Dual Glass Bifacial

Data sheet here

• 144 Half Cut, M10/182mm cells

• 9 busbars

• 2278mm x 1134mm x 30mm (89.69″ x 44.65″ x 1.38″)

580-590 W TOPCon Bifacial

Data sheet here

• Dual-glass bifacial

• 144 Half Cut, M10/182mm cells

• 16 Multiwire busbars

• 2278mm x 1134mm x 30mm (89.69″ x 44.65″ x 1.18″)

Mission Solar said its new line of solar modules are UFLPA-compliant and AD/CVD risk free. Mission Solar’s parent company is OCI Holdings, which owns a major supplier of fully ULFPA compliant, high-purity solar-grade polysilicon.

Both the TOPCon and PERC module lines are tested to UL 61730 & IEC Standards, the company reports. Hail tests results exceeded 25 mm at 23 m/s, while wind resistance tested at 5,400 Pa front load and 2,400 Pa back load. The modules are also resistant to potential induced degradation (PID) and have resistance to salt mist corrosion, said the company.

The modules are fit with Staübli EVO2 MC4 connectors, while the junction box is rated as protection class IP68 with 3 bypass-diodes.

“With more than ten years of solar manufacturing experience, we have a very loyal customer base that trusts the quality and reliability of Mission Solar products,” said Martens. “These new products are a direct response to customers who have been asking us to serve this industry segment.”

Mission Solar is headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, and its parent company OCI Holdings is based in Seoul, South Korea.

Aurora Solar, a platform for solar sales and design, has acquired Lyra, a specialist in permit packaging software that enables solar professionals to automatically create permit-ready design plans.

The solar permitting process can be challenging due to complex regulations and reliance on manual input methods. Aurora, which specializes in streamlining the sales and design process for installers, sees its acquisition of Lyra as adding another tool to help speed up the permitting process.

“Lyra’s advanced automation software for plan sets is the solution the solar industry needs to alleviate a key homeowner pain point — the often agonizing local permitting process – and cut down on wasted time and energy for solar professionals,” said Chris Hopper, CEO at Aurora Solar. ” Our intention is to be the market leader in U.S. residential plan set services and automation; the acquisition of Lyra significantly accelerates our ability to achieve this goal.”

Aurora’s cloud-based platform uses data, automation and artificial intelligence to streamline the process of selling, designing—and now permitting—solar. The company reports that over 20 million solar projects have been designed with the platform globally. The acquisition of Lyra is only one of the many recent moves that Aurora has made to add tools to its toolbox for installers. In March, for example, Aurora Solar announced it was partnering with EagleView, a software platform provider for rooftop solar project designs and sales proposals, announced it has partnered with EagleView, an aerial imagery and geospatial software specialist. Under the partnership, Aurora will make use of EagleView’s high-resolution imagery taken from its aircraft fleet.

Cybersecurity guidelines for smart inverters used in small-scale solar deployments are available in draft form from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

NIST observes that when smart inverters are “configured to behave in a grid-friendly, supportive manner,” they assist the local electric utility in “addressing anomalies” on the electric grid.

But an improperly configured inverter, NIST says, “can respond in inappropriate ways that exacerbate anomalies,” and “a large number of misconfigured smart inverters could have a negative impact on a utility’s efforts to address anomalies.”

That raises the specter of a cyberattack, as NIST states that “if a malicious actor were able to deliberately misconfigure many smart inverters, grid stability and performance could be impacted.”

The draft guidelines recommend that manufacturers incorporate cybersecurity capabilities into their smart inverters. The guidelines are based on NIST’s baseline “internet of things” cybersecurity capabilities guidance, which NIST has made more specific to smart inverters.

How smart inverters communicate is a key focus of the draft guidelines, said Midhat Mafazy, regulatory program engineer with the Interstate Renewable Energy Council.

The NIST draft guidelines note that smart inverters may communicate with the electric utility, third-party operators, the device manufacturer, or other devices in the local environment. Yet “this communication capability also provides an opportunity for cyberattack,” NIST said.

NIST gave several examples of ways to protect smart inverter communications from “malicious actors” while still allowing needed communications.

NIST also made a draft recommendation to disable unused features and capabilities that are not used in a particular device deployment, giving three examples: remote access protocols and interfaces, wireless communications, and “guest” access to smart inverter features or capabilities.

Mafazy said the draft guidelines do not explicitly state how smart inverters’ autonomous functions should be handled. Those autonomous functions can help regulate voltage on a distribution circuit, thereby boosting hosting capacity. Mafazy expressed hope that NIST’s final guidelines could clarify how those autonomous functions should be handled.

On a related issue, Mafazy pointed to the operational difficulty and cost of making changes to smart inverter settings on an already-deployed system, if changes are warranted and initiated by the utility. “This underscores the importance of activating and enabling voltage regulation functions as default during initial deployment,” he said.

NIST said that its recommended cybersecurity capabilities in smart inverters will enable smart inverter owners and installers to implement seven categories of cybersecurity guidelines.

NIST tested five smart inverters to determine whether their capabilities would enable owners and installers to meet the draft guidelines. NIST found, for example, that regarding the ability to disable unused features, only two of the five smart inverters tested had that ability.

Threat level

In a smart inverter vulnerability survey that NIST conducted in 2022, the agency identified 15 vulnerabilities to cyberattacks in 2021, and 30 more going further back in time. The survey used data from NIST’s National Vulnerability Database. “This research identified real cybersecurity concerns that the guidelines should address,” NIST stated.

The NIST draft guidelines are titled “Cybersecurity for smart inverters: Guidelines for residential and light commercial solar energy systems.” The agency has solicited comments on the draft guidelines and is preparing a final version of the guidelines.

Clean Energy Associates (CEA) issued its quarterly report on solar supply chain analysis, technological trends, and regional policy analysis. 

The firm projects that after a more than 60% increase in global solar installations in 2023, growth is expected to sharply decline in 2024. Global demand is expected to be between 401 GW and 511 GW. 

Despite the expected slowdown in installations, supply is expected to continue to grow. CEA sees significant new capacity across polysilicon, cell, and module coming online in 2024. Polysilicon manufacturing is expected to add over 600 GW worldwide, while cell and module sectors will bring more than 300 GW each, said CEA. 

Multiple trade policies are expected to keep prices high in the U.S. The removal of the bifacial exemption to section 201 tariffs, uncertainty created by the launch of a new AD/CVD investigation, and ongoing enforcement of the UFLPA are keeping prices high. CEA said these forces continue to bolster the economic case for investing in U.S. solar manufacturing. 

The risk of AD/CVD is significant. CEA said through the first five months of 2024, about 75% of modules and 50% of cells were imported from the four AD/CVD affected countries of Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. 

“The risk-free supply is limited and fragmented and not enough to meet U.S. cell demand,” said CEA. 

As for technological trends, CEA expects that TOPCon solar modules will now account for around 75% of global distribution in 2024. The firm expects over 400 GW of TOPCon module shipments this year. 

While TOPCon offers efficiency upgrades over silicon without requiring a complete overhaul to manufacturing facilities, it is not without potential risks, warns CEA. Performance degradation risks are “too early to conclude,” it said.  

CEA suggests that proper manufacturing processes and encapsulation could improve reliability. It recommends that buyers avoid products without quality assurance. 

The report also warned of a rising trend of hail damage risk in solar modules. As the industry has shifted to larger, heavier modules, suppliers have been installing thinner and thinner glass. A typical module in 2015 had 3.2 mm glass on its frame and a backsheet and weighed about 26 kg. In 2023, conventional modules are protected by 2.0 mm of glass and have a glass backsheet, while weighing about 38 kg. This shift to thinner glass on larger modules has made them more exposted to the risk of damage from hail impact. 

Based on data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, hail is the cause of 53% of insurance claims for U.S. solar assets. This is followed by wind (32%), and fire (8%). 

Hail insurance now exists in the same category as severe storms, and insurers have increased their concerns about hail risks. Insurance is used to cover the module replacement cost in a hail event. CEA said new policies have set high deductibles and coverage limits in hail-prone regions, and rates may continue to change as risk is re-assessed. 

“Some suppliers have upgraded hail resistance and tested it to a more severe level; however, such modules are usually based on special designs and/or materials that are not mainstream due to cost or limited demand,” said CEA. 

Battery storage deployment in Canada kicks into gear  The deployment of battery energy storage systems (BESS) in Canada is picking up the pace, with the announcement of a 705 MWh battery storage system delivery to Nova Scotia by Canadian Solar’s e-Storage and various other projects in provinces across the country. However, this surge cannot come quickly enough says Energy Storage Canada.

Vineyard installs solar to keep distillery warehouse cool  The 55kW system is expected to produce more than .06 MWh a year and will help keep the vineyard’s distillery storage warehouse at the optimal temperature of 50 to 60 F throughout the year.

California approves 525 MWac of solar and 320 MW of geothermal Southern California Edison received approval from the State of California to proceed with power purchase agreements for three solar power projects and two geothermal projects from startup Fervo Energy.

How grid operators and renewable energy producers can use batteries to develop a flexible energy system As the urgency of mitigating the impacts of climate change intensifies with each passing year, it is the collective responsibility of grid operators and renewable energy producers to spearhead the transition to a renewable energy system.

Global solar installations to nearly quadruple by 2033 Wood Mackenzie forecasts 4.7 TW of solar capacity to be built between 2024 and 2033, with China accounting for about 50% of the growth.

TrendForce says 210 mm module shipments surpassed 260 GW in Q1 Market intelligence platform TrendForce says 210 mm n-type technology is “set to spearhead a new industrial revolution.” It expects 210mm modules to account for 78.29% of the large-format module market this year, increasing to 82.51% by 2027.

Aggreko Energy acquires C&I solar developer With the acquisition of Infiniti Energy, Aggreko expands its commercial and industrial development portfolio.

Enphase begins shipping U.S.-made microinverters for commercial applications The IQ8P-3P commercial microinverters support up to 480 W of peak output power for three-phase commercial installations, and they’re compatible with a wide range of solar modules up to 640 W.

The State of California’s Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has approved five clean energy project power purchase agreements submitted by Southern California Edison. Three of the projects are solar power plants with a total generating capacity of 525 MWac, while the other two are geothermal projects. According to Fervo Energy, these geothermal projects represent the largest geothermal power purchase agreements in the world.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Form EIA-860M, at least one of the Atlas facilities will be coupled with energy storage.

According to the filing with the CPUC, each of the three solar power projects is expected to have an AC capacity factor of just over 36%. In comparison, the Fervo Energy geothermal facilities offer a capacity factor of just over 82%.

In their filing, the CPUC cites the state’s “mid-term reliability” capacity requirements of 3.8 GW by 2036, noting that both the geothermal and the solar-plus-storage projects meet those needs.

California aims to reduce emissions to 25 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMT CO2e) by 2035. The state projects 800 MW of geothermal capacity by 2026, 1.1 GW in 2027, and 2 GW by 2033.

The Atlas Solar V, VI, and X power plants are owned by solar developer 174 Power Global LLC, a subsidiary of the South Korean company Hanwha. Hanwha also owns Qcells, the largest silicon solar module manufacturer in the United States.

Located in Salome, Arizona, the solar facilities will transmit their electricity via the Atlas Solar Tie Line Project, a 500kV transmission line. This line will interconnect the proposed Atlas facilities with the Ten West Link 500 kV transmission line, eventually facilitating the use of the electricity in Blythe, California.

The facilities are situated in an active solar development region managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Arizona State Land Department.

The two geothermal facilities are located at the same site in southwest Utah. The first phase, 70 MW, is expected to come online in 2026, with the second phase scheduled for 2028.

Publicly available documents from western electric utilities hint that Fervo’s power purchase agreements may range between $0.08 and $0.10 per kWh. The company recently announced that drilling times in February were 70% faster and 50% cheaper than in 2022.

From ESS News

Canadian Solar’s e-Storage has secured a contract from Nova Scotia Power to develop the first grid-scale battery energy storage projects across three locations in Nova Scotia, Canada.

The projects, totaling 150 MW / 705 MWh DC and located in Bridgewater, Waverley, and White Rock, will play a major role in enhancing the grid reliability and stability, while contributing to provincial and federal targets of achieving 80% renewables by 2030.

Construction will be completed by the end of 2026, and the first site expected to be operational in 2025. e-Storage will provide comprehensive engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) services along with long-term service agreements (LTSA).

Peter Gregg, President of Nova Scotia Power, said: “We look forward to collaborating with communities and project partners to ensure these projects provide the most cost-effective value to our customers.

Elsewhere, the Canadian province of Saskatchewan’s first utility-scale BESS project came online last week. The construction of the 20 MW facility began in 2022, and it was a Canadian community effort.

Canada’s On Power provided the BESS’ equipment while local utilities business SaskPower employed contractors to complete the installation onsite. The BESS is located at SaskPower’s Fleet Street substation in Regina, which is the capital city of Saskatchewan. The Canadian government supplied approximately $13 million of the project’s total $34 million cost.

“The addition of battery storage will enable SaskPower to better respond to the fluctuating demands of our electrical grid,” said Dustin Duncan, the minister responsible for SaskPower.

Rupen Pandya, SaskPower’s president and CEO said the company was pleased to be adding battery storage as another tool to help it provide power to its customers. Pandya hinted at the possibility for more BESS work if the Regina BESS is a success.

“The experience we gain from operating our first BESS will help us determine the potential for more battery energy storage in the future,” he added.

The project coming online is a significant development for Saskatchewan, which hopes to reach net-zero emissions 15 years later than the national Canadian target of 2035.

Elsewhere in Canada, other BESS-related advancements have been pouring in. In May, the government of Ontario completed the largest battery storage procurement in Canadian history. It secured 2,195 MW from ten projects ranging in size from 9 MW to 390 MW.

Article continues on ESS News…

Keeping the grid stable is priority number one for grid operators, and over the past century, various technologies and strategies have emerged and been implemented to assist with load management, frequency regulation, and black start capability, among others. Most of these solutions are designed to work with a grid characterized by high inertia provided by spinning generators. However, as solar PV and other inverter-based power generation resources increase in number on the grid, they often displace spinning generators, the source of high inertia, leaving grid operators who have small and islanded systems to manage low-inertia grids with tools designed for high-inertia grids. This doesn’t work.

One big problem for island systems with low inertia is that the rate of change of frequency (RoCoF) is faster on a low-inertia grid than on a high-inertia one. This means that the response rate to correct a frequency deviation must occur within milliseconds on a low-inertia grid, whereas a high-inertia grid can rely on that inertia to carry it through the first five to ten-second period before needing to rebalance. Traditional frequency regulation methods such as generator and load-shedding responses are simply not fast enough for low-inertia grids.

The solid lines on this graph depict the dropping frequency on low, medium and high inertia systems. As is demonstrated by the steep drop of the yellow (low inertia) line, the frequency drops much more rapidly on a low inertia system than on a high inertia (red line) system.

To combat this problem, low-inertia grid operators turn to traditional solutions, such as increasing the number of fossil-fuel spinning generators to compensate for the drop in system inertia. Then, because they need to keep the additional generator running so it is ready to respond to such an event, and this generator is producing electricity, the operators resort to curtailing the renewable energy generated by their inverter-based resources because they now have an excess of power supply. In addition to wasting generated renewable energy, this approach creates a vicious cycle that adds unnecessary redundancy, expense, and runs counter to environmental and sustainability initiatives.

Solving the inertia deficit

It may seem counterintuitive to operators who are familiar with traditional grid management methods, but the key to stabilizing the destabilizing effects of more renewables on the grid is—more renewables. And the key to managing more renewables is—software in the form of a high-speed, precise controller. The renewables can make up for the lost inertia by offering synthetic inertia in the form of rapid or fast frequency response, and the controller is the brains behind detecting grid disturbances and ensuring the inverter-based resources are dispatched within milliseconds to rebalance any deviations.

A critical part of this approach is to integrate a battery energy storage system (BESS). The BESS behaves as a shock absorber capable of absorbing or releasing power from/onto the grid to compensate for changes in production, load, or frequency. When a BESS is paired with a sophisticated high-speed controller, the BESS can be called upon to perform additional grid management functions, increasing its own return on investment. These additional BESS functions include:

• Energy shifting: Absorbing excess solar PV power during periods of high production and dispatching it during low production times. This reduces the need for curtailments, captures generated power that would otherwise be lost, and augments the ability to respond to demand spikes.
• Ramp control: Solar PV production is intermittent and can be highly variable during weather events when cloud cover can cause rapid peaks and valleys in power output. A BESS can absorb those peaks and bump up the valleys to smooth and stabilize power output.
• Frequency regulation: Providing fast frequency response to address the steep RoCoF on low-inertia grids is a snap as BESS power can be instantly dispatched to address a frequency deviation.

It takes a multi-level, high-speed controller to manage all these use cases in a single battery. The controller needs to be able to generate a plan in advance that factors in anticipated grid load requirements and be able to adapt that plan in response to current events. Without the kind of parallel processing capability that can learn, plan, triage, and command, the BESS might be full when it needs to absorb and drained when it needs to dispatch. Of course, it’s possible to have dedicated BESS units for each use case but given the amount of downtime that the BESS is idling in between use cases, it makes more sense to pack all the use cases into one. This saves capital costs and helps in instances where there may be physical constraints that prevent multiple BESS units from being installed.

So far, we’ve revealed that the ‘secret’ to keeping a highly renewable grid stable is to integrate a BESS + multi-level, high-speed controller onto the grid. But what about inverters, where do those come in?

Will grid-forming inverters help?

When it comes to tools made for the 21st-century grid, grid-forming inverters show a lot of promise. Unlike grid-following ones, grid-forming inverters don’t require a fully functioning grid to “follow” to determine their own set points. This makes them great for managing inverter-based resources on low-inertia grids.

When paired with renewable resources like solar PV or a BESS, grid-forming inverters can help with grid support services such as black start and frequency management. However, there are some services they can’t assist with, and worse, when multiple grid-forming inverters are configured on a grid, they can compete with one another to try to re-stabilize the grid after a disturbance, which results in more destabilization. So, they can’t offer a full solution to low-inertia grid woes.

What the inverters need is something in charge of all of them. That’s where the multi-level controller comes in again. A multi-level, high-speed controller establishes and enforces a control hierarchy over all the grid’s energy resources, empowering each resource to contribute when and as needed, as directed by the controller. It can work with both grid-forming and –following inverters and integrate with the grid’s existing resources. Plus, if it is both network- and equipment-aware, the controller will ensure operations remain within the system’s constraints.

With visibility over the entire grid and its resources, the multi-level controller can take a holistic approach and make real-time decisions that take the grid’s limitations and the operator’s priorities into account. That leads to fewer outages and more rapid restorations when unavoidable outages occur.

Islands wishing to reduce their reliance on fossil fuel power generation need to let go of traditional grid management methods and embrace the tools of the 21st-century grid. Solar PV, wind generation, high-speed inverters, and BESSs are all part of the new technology mix, and when combined with a multi-level, high-speed controller, have been proven in real-world island environments.

Tim Allen, CEO of PXiSE Energy Solutions, brings more than 22 years of experience across utility-scale solar, wind and energy storage projects, software controls, investor-owned utility, independent power producer and pure developer realms. His unique set of skills, beginning with an Electrical Engineering degree from CalPoly offers seasoned perspectives and relationships that position him to lead PXiSE into the future. 

University solar projects model institutional responsibility With a goal of achieving net neutrality by 2030, the University at Buffalo is not just generating clean energy with its solar installations, but serving as an example of how solar can become part of the landscape.

Public input sought for large-scale solar project in Arizona According to the application submitted by developer EDF Renewables, the proposed Socorro project will sit on 3,066 acres on nearly 6,000-acres of public land and it would produce up to 350 MW of solar energy along with battery energy storage.

U.S. household energy can wield 15 GW to affordably meet electricity demand A report from Deloitte showed how distributed energy resources (DER) can help the U.S. meet its climate goals while improving the functionality of the grid.

Google invests in Taiwanese solar developer New Green Power Google has made a capital investment in Taiwan-based New Green Power, in a deal that grants the U.S. company the rights to procure up to 300 MW of solar assets.

PV market eyes recovery amid falling module prices Martin Schachinger, founder of pvXchange.com, says that solar module prices are falling across the board, while batteries and inverters are hitting historically low prices due to market oversupply.

AEG unveils hybrid inverters for high-voltage PV systems The new three-phase hybrid inverter series includes five versions with power ratings of 6 kW to 15 kW. They feature efficiencies of up to 98.2% and a maximum input voltage of 1,000 V.

As households are increasingly electrifying their appliances, heating and cooling systems, and shifting toward driving electric vehicles, electric utilities are faced with new challenges in serving demand while achieving decarbonization and maintaining customer affordability.

A report from Deloitte explains how distributed energy resources (DER) can meet these multiple challenges, filling a gap that centralized utility-scale power cannot accomplish as efficiently. DERs represent household electrical resources like home solar, batteries, electric vehicles, smart thermostats and smart appliances. When coordinated intelligently, DERs can reduce strain on the grid, cutting down on peak electricity demand requirements.

“If utilities successfully engage customers, they could harness DER to help meet peak demand with clean energy and provide essential grid services, while equitably sharing revenue and resilience benefits with households and placing downward pressure on rates,” said Deloitte.

Deloitte said household power capacity from DER could surpass total peak demand by 2035 in a decarbonized grid scenario. Households in the U.S. could wield more than 1,500 GW of generation, storage, and flexible demand capacity, said Deloitte.

This may prove important, as grid planners who had assumed flat demand for decades have increased projections in early 2023, ending the year by doubling their five-year load forecast to 4.7%. As utilities reassess demand from domestic manufacturers, artificial intelligence data centers, cryptocurrency miners, and green hydrogen producers, and transportation and building electrification, demand estimates continue to be revised upward. Achieving the Biden administration’s target for a fully decarbonized grid by 2035 with renewables could double peak demand to 1.4 terawatts by 2035, said the report.

Utility-scale renewables development is serving the bulk of this demand growth and replacing retired fossil fuel capacity. But issues with grid interconnection delays are mounting, pushing out projects or leading to cancellations.

“The bulk power system is constrained due to fossil fuel plant retirements and lengthy project timelines for new power plants to connect to limited transmission infrastructure, now stretching to five years,” said Deloitte. “In 2023, the backlog of mostly utility-scale renewables and storage awaiting grid interconnection grew to 2.6 terawatts—more than twice the current installed capacity.”

Particularly for serving peak demand needs, DERs may offer a more cost-friendly solution than current methods. Peak electricity demand typically occurs in summer afternoons and evenings when people come home from work and run their air conditioning and appliances. Peak demand is typically served by fossil-fueled peaker plants that are idle most of the time but built to ensure utilities have enough capacity to quickly start up when electricity demand spikes. For grid-scale renewables to serve peak demand, generation and storage build-out is required to be much larger because only a fraction of intermittent capacity counts toward resource adequacy requirements, and solar generation does not match the load profile of winter peaking systems.

Thus, flexible DERs at home, which can strategically lower power consumption or self-consume stored power at these times of peak demand, can help lower the amount of excess reserve capacity built on the grid.

“Studies commissioned by the states of California and New York show that managed electrification could lower the cost of distribution upgrades needed through 2035 by more than $30 billion in each of these states,” said Deloitte. “That’s because building efficiency measures and smart devices to manage energy usage and smooth EV charging could reduce capital spending on new substations, transformers, feeders, and other distribution equipment.”

There are regulatory, data, and stakeholder engagement challenges to getting an effective DER system up and running. The technology needed to unlock this great potential is already actively being installed, but a coordinated integration effort between regulators, utilities, installers, and homeowners will be required for the benefits to be realized. Deliotte offers a roadmap toward achieving DER buildout and integration in its report.

The University at Buffalo (UB) has an aggressive climate action plan with a goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2030. To move the University closer to that goal, it’s installed five ground-mount solar arrays as well as four rooftop installations with plans for more in the future.

The largest and most recent of the arrays called the UB Solar Stroll is set on 24.5 acres on the University campus. Made up of 16,354 Qcell Q.Peak Duo 400 W solar panels, the Solar Stroll array produces 6.54 MW of electricity or 8.29 GWh annually, the equivalent to offsetting the usage of approximately 1,354 homes.

Ryan McPherson, chief sustainability officer, told pv magazine USA that when they built the solar project, they didn’t want to put fences around it “because solar is not just about energy.” He noted that the high-voltage equipment is fenced, of course, but otherwise the arrays are open to the public. “It gets people thinking about how you can integrate solar into your world.”

The Solar Stroll and its predecessor, the Solar Strand, have become models for how to integrate solar into the landscape, and is now used by clubs, school groups and community organizations. The University’s Solar Decathlon house also sits alongside the Strand, another testament to UB’s commitment to sustainability.

As chief sustainability officer, McPherson played a lead role in the solar projects and said that the organization, Second Nature, was infinitely helpful. “We wouldn’t have done what we’ve done without them,” McPherson said.

Second Nature is a non-profit organization with a mission to help higher education institutions act on climate commitments and to help them scale campus climate initiatives and create innovative climate solutions. The organization reports that since 1993, it has helped hundreds of colleges and universities work toward achieving climate goals.

McPherson said that it was through Second Nature’s workshops, educational and networking opportunities that he learned about renewables and specifically about power purchase agreements. “Second Nature catalyzed solar in universities”.

Before the University embarked on the Solar Stroll array, it had financed smaller installations through grants. Financing the larger array was a challenge. “Our bread and butter is research and education, so when there’s capital, our cash goes into that,” McPherson said.

Second Nature introduced the University to the power purchase agreement (PPA) model, which helped them to leverage capital and gave them budget stability. UB signed a 20-year PPA with Buffalo Climate Action, a subsidiary of Solar Liberty and Oriden, which has since been assigned to Greenbacker.

McPherson said the result is that, while they were initially just trying to get to grid parity, they have stability because they know what they’ll pay for energy over time and they’re actually saving money now.

The University is now using two different models of PPAs; a virtual PPA that goes out to the meter and another physical one that is behind the meter. They also embarked on an initiative to advance solar in the region, partnering with Erie County, Buffalo State College and Erie Community College. “If we achieve climate neutrality by 2030, that’s great but if nobody else does it doesn’t help,” said McPherson.

Going forward, UB is looking to mandate that all new construction have the ability to install rooftop solar on buildings, similar to the measure California recently enacted requiring builders to include solar and battery energy storage in most new construction projects. The University is also looking closely at solar canopies for campus parking lots.

“As a major public research university, these solar panels speak — they communicate and reinforce our value of taking responsibility for our actions as an institution,” said  McPherson.

The renewable energy projects received national attention when Vice President Kamala Harris chose UB as the place to tout the landmark Inflation Reduction Act. The Vice President called the work that is happening at UB “very exciting and really a model for our country.”

The pace at which states and utilities are requiring smart inverters for new distributed solar and storage installations “generally continues to be slow,” said Steven Rymsha, Sunrun’s director of grid solutions, public policy.

That matters because work in Hawaii, he said, has shown that hosting capacity for distributed solar and storage can increase by as much as 500% on a distribution circuit where smart inverters use default settings that regulate voltage. Hawaii’s main utility has greatly expanded its hosting capacity by requiring smart inverters that meet a global standard known as IEEE 1547-2018. Rymsha made his comments in an interview.

By regulating voltage, smart inverters enable more distributed solar and storage on a distribution circuit without the need for costly utility voltage regulation hardware. That’s true not just for a primary distribution circuit, Rymsha said, but also on a customer’s secondary circuit, or service connection from the customer’s service transformer—a circuit that may serve up to 10 or more customers.

In Hawaii, California and Illinois, the earliest adopters of smart inverter capabilities, Rymsha said “the research and the real-world experience” show that the IEEE default settings for the smart inverter functions known as volt-var and volt-watt “make a lot of sense.” Even before that, in the IEEE standards development process, he said the default settings were “well vetted by utilities and other stakeholders.”

Rymsha said that while the smart inverter settings being selected by states “should go through stakeholder processes,” enabling smart inverter voltage regulation functions quickly “is going to make interconnection easier for customers today and long into the future.”

Not-smart inverters

Eight states, along with certain utilities in 13 states, now require that distributed solar and storage installations use smart inverters that meet the IEEE 1547-2018 standard, according to a tracker maintained by the nonprofit group IREC.

Yet IREC’s tracker shows that some of the states and utilities that have adopted smart inverters specify that the inverters must use a volt-var setting that does not help control voltage on a distribution circuit. Without controlling voltage, the setting, which IREC’s tracker refers to as “unity power factor,” does not improve the circuit’s hosting capacity for solar and storage.

Rymsha noted that smart inverters also have functionalities that can support the transmission grid, and that settings enabling those functionalities are now required for newly installed smart inverters in the New England grid region ISO-NE. Yet the volt-var and volt-watt settings that regulate voltage on a distribution circuit “are still not being used across that entire region,” he said.

Other states, he said, are in a similar circumstance, as they are requiring the latest inverters, but without the voltage management settings enabled. “The pace of function activation should be accelerated,” Rymsha said.

Asked whether it would be feasible for a state to call for updating the settings in smart inverters used in rooftop solar systems after the systems are installed, Rymsha said that for inverters that have an internet connection, “I am aware of new grid codes being pushed to inverters, but the process in Hawaii to do this was complicated as it required customer consent in some form.”

Consumer protection

In Puerto Rico, where the distribution utility is expected to require smart inverters starting July 1, Rymsha said Sunrun is advocating for consumer protections as it participates in stakeholder discussions about smart inverters.

Rymsha anticipates the utility will require smart inverters to use the IEEE’s default volt-var and volt-watt settings, and if so, there should be “a consumer protection package, similar to what Hawaii has rolled out,” he said. California and Maryland have also set consumer protection packages when they required that both functions be activated, he added.

Hawaii, working in collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, used a custom setting similar to the IEEE default setting for the volt-var function, and activated volt-watt for all customers, Rymsha said, “which really revolutionized the interconnection process for everyone.” Hawaii’s main utility uses advanced metering infrastructure data to monitor voltages, he said, plus the volt-watt function which enables curtailment to maintain voltage within the proper range when needed. But “if there is excessive curtailment, the utilities are responsible to upgrade the infrastructure within a predetermined amount of time.”

“We think something like that’s needed for Puerto Rico as well,” he said.

Plug and play

Beyond seeing “a lot of opportunity” to use smart inverter settings to enable greater adoption of distributed solar and storage, Rymsha sees an opportunity to “make it like buying any other product you like,” where a customer buys the product, “and very quickly it’s being delivered to your house and operating.”

“For a lot of customers today,” he said, their expectations start out “very high, and then when they get involved in the utility processes, delays can occur without any visibility from the development community—just big, big bottlenecks.”

“As we look to electrify society, we need to look at how we can radically change utility processes on the interconnection side, to really make distributed energy resources an attractive, consumer-friendly solution. And as these get built out at scale, there’s a lot of opportunities to provide grid services; ideally, that’s all packaged up front.”

Community solar provider Ampion Renewable Energy is partnering with The Wendy’s Company to help the restaurant chain source renewable energy. By signing onto community solar projects, companies like Wendy’s support the generation of renewable electricity for local grids.

Nearly 100 company-operated Wendy’s restaurants and nearly 40 franchise restaurants in New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts are now enrolled in Ampion+, a product that enables organizations t secure renewable energy certificates (RECs). RECs are a green power procurement strategy that electricity consumers, such as Wendy’s, use to substantiate renewable electricity use claims.

The result of the agreement, according to Ampion, is that the enrolled restaurants will source between 30% and 100% of their energy from solar without the need to install solar panels onsite. Wendy’s plans to increase the number of restaurants enrolled in Ampion’s community solar program as additional solar generation capacity comes online and more franchise restaurants enroll in the program.

“We are excited about the opportunity this partnership provides our Company and franchise restaurant operators by making it easier and more accessible to source clean energy while ultimately realizing cost savings,” said Steven Derwoed, vice president, global design & construction at Wendy’s. “We are advancing progress toward our emissions reduction goals through community solar participation and RECs. It’s a win-win for the Company and our franchisees.”

Last year, Wendy’s set near-term science-based targets to reduce absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 47%, and Scope 3 emissions from franchisees by 47% per restaurant by 2030, from a 2019 baseline.

Through Ampion, Wendy’s locations have enrolled approximately 27.5 million kWh in community solar or the equivalent electricity needed for 2,200 homes for one year. Each kilowatt hour will be accounted for, tracked, and assigned ownership to a specific restaurant location via RECs through the Ampion+ product.

“As the need for reducing carbon emissions grows, community solar combined with RECs provides a solution for environmental sustainability in the corporate sector that is both achievable and affordable, while enabling companies to quantify and disclose their progress in a standardized manner,” said Nate Owen, CEO and founder of Ampion. “We’re seeing more large companies actively seeking sustainable solutions through community solar. This partnership with Wendy’s demonstrates that Ampion is able to support these organizations in reducing emissions and putting more renewable energy on the grid for local communities.”

Community solar is expanding rapidly in the U.S. with 22 states, including Washington D.C. that have policies supporting third-party shared or community solar. According to the Coalition for Community Solar Access, 6.6 GW of community solar generation capacity has been installed to date, and Wood Mackenzie’s most recent U.S. community solar market outlook predicts that there will be 14 GW power installed across the country by the end of 2028.

Earlier this year, Ampion surpassed 1 GW of community solar generation under management. Currently active in nine states and counting, Ampion acquires and manages subscribers of all types, from housing authorities, municipalities, and enterprises such as Wendy’s, to small businesses and residential subscribers. Ampion reports that it acquired thousands of low-to-moderate income subscribers in 2023, expanding access to those who need savings the most.

From pv magazine 6/24

Tariff and trade tensions, tempered by favorable industrial policies courtesy of the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), have prompted multiple solar and storage manufacturers to announce plans to set up facilities in the United States, some for the first time.

To date, most firms eyeing US ventures are in China, reflecting the global dominance of Chinese PV and storage companies. Companies based in India are in the mix, too, followed by European producers and a roster of businesses from across Southeast Asia and South Korea.

With all this interest comes the realization that many business practices that are considered normal in the United States, differ – sometimes in big ways – from other parts of the world. Take employee parking, for example. Companies based in parts of the world where private vehicle ownership is not the norm may look at the acres of car park space at US manufacturing sites and see wasted potential.

On the other hand, some non-US employers are surprised when they hear worker dormitories are not standard at manufacturing sites. Or that the open labor market, not a government ministry, is the primary source for workers. Some find it a foreign concept that most Americans are willing to commute a significant distance to a job they secured on their own.

Other cultural differences include the layers of decision-makers who need to sign off on manufacturing plants, the subtle differences between product and equipment standards, and the emergence in some parts of the United States of opposition to any investments by Chinese companies.

Location and equipment

Site selection provides another challenge. Many available buildings were originally built for warehouse or distribution purposes. Such operations typically use little energy, at least when compared with solar and battery production lines. Electrical service upgrades often become necessary, with upgrades sometimes required all the way to the substation. In other cases, new substations need to be built from scratch.

That means the prospective manufacturer must work with local utilities to secure upgrades. Sometimes this can be done relatively quickly, with the utility able to locate transformers within a year.

However, equipment acquisition often proves more difficult. In the case of transformers and related substation equipment, wait times of several years are becoming more common. That means a non-US manufacturer needs to be something of a utility expert, able to understand and work not only across multiple business types (investor-owned, cooperative, municipal, and so on), but also with regulated or unregulated regimes which vary by state.

Even when it comes to commonplace equipment such as a facility’s air conditioner, lead times of two to three years are increasingly reported for 40-ton units and larger. Fewer than a dozen suppliers exist that manufacture equipment of this size for the US market and each typically produces only a handful of units each week, to meet global demand.

Matter of standards

Even for European companies, different quality, certification, and manufacturing standards need to be addressed. That’s because companies working in the European Union typically are more familiar with the bloc’s CE mark for health, safety, and environmental protection. Products that have received the CE mark are not automatically UL (Underwriters Laboratories)-listed for sale in the United States. In part, this is because some product types with the CE mark do not have to be third-party certified and are not necessarily compliant with US standards.

Rarely does a one-to-one equivalency exist so qualification testing often needs to be performed for European products and equipment to be used in the United States.

A further layer of complexity often exists here. The certification must satisfy not a federal or state official but, in many cases, an official as local as a fire marshal. These local code administrators are instrumental in deciding whether every aspect of a facility complies with a host of safety standards. Only after a fire marshal signs off can a manufacturing plant be occupied and begin production.

Multiple logistical issues can also surprise non-US firms. For example, an industrial site in the middle of the country might look like an ideal solution and then be rejected because it is too far from a deepwater port, which adds to transportation expenses and delays. Or an industrial site close to a deepwater port on one of the coasts may have an unacceptably large risk of suffering natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods. A site in the fast-growing and sunbaked Southwest of the United States may lack access to long-term, reliable water supplies.

Managing differences

Any company looking to base itself in the United States should develop a set of qualifying categories that rank the importance of a range of inputs, from available real estate to utility service upgrades to workforce availability, as they pertain to specific projects.

One outcome of such an exercise is that it’s rare for two seemingly similar businesses to favor the same site, let alone the same state. While many factory projects look the same from the outside, their specific needs can be quite different. One emerging factor is the policy – written and unwritten – in some states that discourages Chinese-owned factories. There are still states that welcome Chinese ownership, however.

At the federal level, there is the No Official Giveaways of Taxpayers’ Income to Oppressive Nations (NO GOTION) Act. This is a bill in the House of Representatives that would prohibit companies affiliated with certain regimes around the world from benefiting from IRA tax credits. It is likely that companies that have begun manufacturing prior to the bill’s passage will be affected differently.

Renewed interest in, and support of, domestic US solar manufacturing is opening attractive opportunities for foreign-based companies to set up production lines. Cultural differences exist, however, and need to be proactively addressed to help ensure a project’s profitability.

About the author: Mark Hagedorn is the vice president of manufacturing services for Clean Energy Associates.

The Renewable Energy Test Center (RETC) released its 2024 PV Module Index report, evaluating the reliability, quality, and performance of solar panels.

Solar modules are put through a variety of accelerated stress tests to evaluate these parameters. Through comparative test results, project stakeholders can select products best suited for a particular environment, location, or portfolio.

To identify the best of the best, RETC reviewed and ranked the overall data distributions across three disciplines: quality, performance, and reliability. Find the overall top performers at the end of this report.

Reliability

Backsheet ultraviolet durability

Top performers: JA Solar, Longi Solar, SolarSpace

Backsheet ultraviolet durability (BUDT) incorporates a durability testing sequence to probe glass-on-backsheet PV module designs for vulnerabilities to UV exposure and prevent backsheet-related failures. This BUDT sequence starts with 1,000 hours of damp heat exposure to weaken polymeric bonds.

Highlighted top performers experience no backsheet cracking in the test.

Damp heat test

Top performers: Astronergy, ES Foundry, Longi Solar, Runergy, and Trina Solar

The RETC thresher test includes a damp heat test that exposes modules for 2,000 hours, double the amount required for product certification. The test evaluates a module’s ability to withstand prolonged exposure to humid, high-temperature environments. Taking place inside an environmental chamber, the test exposes modules to a controlled temperature of 85 C (185 F) and a relative humidity of 85% for a set amount of time.

RETC highlighted performers that experienced less than 2% degradation after this exposure.

Hail durability

Top performers: JA Solar, Longi Solar

RETC’s hail durability test takes UL and IEC standards testing a step further, exposing solar modules to higher kinetic impact to reflect the risk posed by hail over a 25 or 30-year operating life. In addition to ballistic impact testing, RETC runs thermal cycle and hot-spot tests to reveal potential long-term module degradation.

The top performers in this category withstood an effective kinetic energy of 20 Joules or more. These modules effectively demonstrated resistance to a 45 mm (1.8 in.) iceball traveling at a terminal velocity of 30.7 m/s (68.7 mph).

Potential induced degradation (PID) 

Top performers: Astronergy, ES Foundry, GEP VN, Gstar, JA Solar, Longi Solar, Qcells, REC Solar, Runergy, SEG Solar, Silfab Solar, SolarSpace, Talesun, Trina Solar, VSUN Solar, and Yingli Solar

Potential induced degradation (PID) resistance tests rack-mounted modules in an environmental chamber, which controls temperature and humidity and exposes them to a voltage bias of several hundred volts with respect to the mounting structure for 192 hours (PID192 exposure). PID testing characterizes a module’s ability to withstand degradation due to voltage and current leakage resulting from ion mobility between the semiconductor and other elements in module packaging.

RETC required that PV module models withstand PID192 exposure with less than 2% degradation in maximum power. At the other end of the spectrum, it considered maximum power degradation greater than or equal to 5% a red-flag result.

Static and dynamic mechanical load test

Top performers: Aptos Solar, Astronergy, ES Foundry, Gstar, JA Solar, Longi Solar, Runergy, Silfab Solar, SolarSpace, Trina Solar, and Yingli Solar

This test exposes modules to 1,000 cycles of +1,000 pascal and –1,000 pascal loads at a frequency of three to seven cycles per minute. Measurements were taken after this stress test rate electrical performance.

This year, RETC required that PV module models withstand SDML exposure with less than 2.5% degradation in maximum power. It considered maximum power degradation greater than or equal to 5% to be a red-flag result. In this testing category, it notes that 68% of samples qualified as high achievers whereas 7% returned red-flag results.

Thermal cycling

Top performers: Aptos Solar, Astronergy, ES Foundry, Gstar, JA Solar, Longi Solar, Qcells, Runergy, SolarSpace, Trina Solar, and Yingli Solar

The thermal cycle test calls for cycling modules in an environmental chamber between two temperature extremes—85 C (185 F) on the high end and –40 C (–40F)  on the low end. The RETC test runs 600 cycles, three times as much as the 200 required for certification.

About 67% of modules in this test achieved high performer status of less than 2% power loss, while 9% of tested brands had power losses of 5% or more.

Ultraviolet induced degradation (UVID)

Top performers: Trina Solar and VSUN Solar

UVID tests characterize a PV module’s ability to withstand ultraviolet induced degradation. This optional testing sequence exposes test samples to 220 kWh/m2 of UV exposure (UV220), nearly 15 times the UV exposure required for product certification.

Top performers withstand UV220 exposure with less than 2% degradation in maximum power. Red flag modules that degraded more than 5% represented 40% of brands tested.

“Alarmingly, we observed double-digit power loss in some mass-produced, commercially available PV modules, indicating that these products could degrade 10%–16% in the first three years of in-field operation,” said RETC.

Performance

Module efficiency

Top performers: Astronergy, Mission Solar, Qcells, REC Solar, and Silfab Solar

Module conversion efficiency is determined by dividing a product’s nameplate maximum power rating under standard test conditions by its total aperture area.

RETC has recognized manufacturers of PV module models with conversion efficiencies greater than 21% as test category high achievers. About 56% of tested modules were listed as high performers.

Incidence angle modifier

Top performers: Dehui Solar, ES Foundry, JA Solar, JinkoSolar, Longi Solar, Meyer Burger, Qcells, Runergy, Silfab Solar, and SolarSpace

Incidence angle modifier (IAM) is a performance characteristic that accounts for changes in PV module output based on changing sun angles relative to the plane of the array. To characterize IAM, RETC conducts electrical characterization tests at different incidence angles, ranging from 0° to 90°.

Manufacturers of PV module models with an IAM greater than 88% at a 70° angle of incidence were listed as test category high achievers.

LeTID resistance

Top performers: Astronergy, Gstar, JinkoSolar, Longi Solar, Runergy, SEG Solar, Silfab Solar, SolarSpace, Talesun, Trina Solar, VSUN Solar, Waaree, Yingli Solar

Relatively new cell technologies may experience long-term degradation associated with light exposure and elevated temperatures. This phenomenon, called light- and elevated temperature-induced degradation (LeTID), is tested with a protocol of light soaking, followed by 75 C (167 F) temperature exposure for two 162-hour cycles to identify significant degradation (>5%). Subsequently, test samples are subject to 500 hours of 75 C temperature exposure followed by two additional 162-hour cycles.

Highlighted top performers demonstrated products that had less than 0.5% power loss after 486 hours of exposure.

LID resistance

Top performers: Astronergy, GEP VN, Gstar, JA Solar, JinkoSolar, Longi Solar, Meyer Burger, Qcells, Runergy, SEG Solar, Silfab Solar, SolarSpace, Talesun, Trina Solar, VSUN Solar, Waaree, and Yingli Solar

Light-induced degradation (LID), or power losses from sunlight exposure, affects some PV cell types but not others. PV modules exposed to LID losses rapidly lose performance over the first few hours or days of operation before stabilizing. RETC notes LID resistance is highly correlated with cell type.

RETC required that PV module models withstand the LID sequence with less than or equal to 0.5% degradation in maximum power.

Module efficiency

Top performers: Auxin Solar, JA Solar, Longi Solar, Meyer Burger, Mission Solar, Qcells, REC Solar, Silfab Solar, Trina Solar, Yingli Solar

Module efficiency, or the percentage of incident solar energy converted to electrical energy, is a well-known and key metric for solar performance. It is highly correlated with cell technology and module design.

The top 14 highest scoring modules scored efficiencies of 20% or more. An n-type TOPCon cell scored the highest at 25.8% efficiency, followed by a monocrystalline silicon module with heterojunction technology, recording a 22.4% efficiency.

PAN file

A recent report by Tennessee-based carbon solutions platform Clearloop noted that private companies have contracted for 71 GW of new renewable energy capacity in the U.S. since 2014, which is enough electricity to power nearly 15 million homes. However, the distribution of solar and wind projects tends to cluster regionally, and not only because of the availability of wind and solar resources. State and utility renewable energy policies play a huge role in where new projects are sited.

Clearloop, which is a subsidiary of solar power producer Silicon Ranch, partnered with non-profit emissions data analysis firm WattTime to study how renewable energy projects – and solar in particular – could be sited to produce better environmental and even social outcomes. The resulting white paper, Curing Carbon Blindness, reinforces the important role of private sector action in growing renewable energy in the U.S. while at the same time saying such action can be better focused to achieve decarbonization goals.

By incorporating the principle of “emmissionality,” the report suggests, companies looking to purchase renewable energy credits (RECs) or offset to their carbon footprints should seek to contract with solar and wind projects in regions with the highest percentage of fossil fuel generation.

Under the current structure, all RECs are essentially created equal, meaning an offtaker in one part of the country can buy RECs from a project anywhere else. There are differences in regional markets, such as ERCOT, but this is generally how it works. Laura Zapata, co-founder and CEO of Clearloop and one of the authors of the carbon blindness report, said not all MWh of clean energy are created equal in terms of their environmental impact.

“We still get over 60% of our electricity in this country from fossil fuels,” Zapata told pv magazine USA. “And so, our goal is how do we build more solar projects in the most carbon intense communities, which also happen to be often the most underserved and disadvantaged communities.”

Unlike most countries, the U.S. does not have a single national energy grid. It is more like a continent with many regional grids of widely varying emissions characteristics. Some regions, such as California, have grids with high percentages of renewables, while others, such as in the southern Appalachians, have fossil-fuel-heavy generation.

According to the Clearloop report, turning on a light switch in eastern Kentucky will result in 54% more carbon emissions than turning on a corresponding light in Los Angeles. This same data show that a new solar plant located in eastern Kentucky will reduce emissions by 62% more than the same plant would in Los Angeles.

By combining historical irradiance data with WattTime’s marginal emissions data, Clearloop says it is able to model not only how much electricity a solar project is expected to supply the grid, but also the marginal carbon intensity of the power generation sources it is displacing in that region at specific times.

Zapata argues that the marginal difference in emissions that results when solar generation displaces fossil fuel generation should be a key factor in citing projects. Using WattTime’s emissions analysis methodology, Clearloop had identified the regions of the U.S. where new solar, the report’s main focus, would have the greatest decarbonization impact by reducing a like amount of fossil fuel generation sources.

The analysis also extends to voluntary carbon offset markets that rely on private carbon credit registries, such as Verra or Gold Standard. This enables a company to use the methodology for contracting with solar projects to offset its carbon footprint from activities other than electricity consumption, such as air travel.

“Our clients are not interested in the electricity,” Zapata said. “What they want is credit for the environmental impact of those electrons flowing into the grid. So, whether they count them as RECs or offsets, we’re sort of agnostic.”