Data shows solar asset underperformance and bias towards optimistic pricing
Solar assets are underperforming far more frequently than official energy estimates would suggest, according to the industry experts who contributed to KwH Analytics’ 2020 solar risk assessment report.
Job moves: Helena Kimball promoted to CEO at Cthulhu-backed solar startup; plus Strata, sPower, KCE, Borrego, Sunpro
Executive and boardroom moves in solar, storage, cleantech, utilities and energy VC.
Job Moves: New CEO at Solaria, plus Primergy, NovaSource, Lithos, EPRI, APS, MEI, ACORE
Executive and boardroom moves in solar, storage, cleantech, utilities and energy VC.
Study of 100,000 arrays finds proactive O&M preferable
The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory examined five-year data to observe the most common system failure points and how to prevent them. Researchers considered residential, commercial and utility scale plants and found interesting results. While failures cannot be avoided completely, a key takeaway was that close monitoring and timely repair can effectively mitigate the financial effects of failures.
Hardware and Services Brief: 72-cell heterojunction, fuzz and buzz, Tesla making its own battery cells, more!
PV InfoLink sees some multi-silicon module pricing increases, Array Technologies’ new clip lets First Solar install a module every 11 seconds and DNV GL has launched a global solar production projection tool. Send your hardware and services to USA-Editors@pv-magazine.com
The futurology of solar power: robots, hackers, 5G, cheaper modules, repowering, and really cheap electricity
Module efficiencies will continue to increase, while the price of an individual module will stay the same. Not only will this hardware produce more power, it’ll work far longer — with predictions of 30-year module warranties, roughly the projected lifetime of gas assets.
Let the solar games begin — more innovation on the Intersolar show floor
Plenty of innovative hardware at the show that isn’t a module, battery or racking — as well as services and the Solar Games.
The new SunPower: CEO Tom Werner on disintegrating a PV firm and software eating solar-plus-storage
“It’s what we’ve talked about for many years — it makes sense to produce energy where you use it. And it makes sense that it would be intelligent and easily optimized. The new SunPower will focus exclusively on accomplishing that.”
Hardware Brief: Solar+storage+indoor farming, space robots, battery packs at $135/kWh, more!
Sunmodo’s racking hardware has been approved by Sunnova, Schneider Electric and Scale Microgrid Solutions are partnering up to do some indoor farming, Groundwork rents the machines you need to build and maintain your facilities and more! Also – send your gear news to USA-Editors@pv-magazine.com to get in here.
First half of 2019 saw sunlight down as much as 10%, grand solar minimum held off in second half
Clean Power Research saw solar generation shift downward from the norm as much as 10% in many U.S. locations in the first half of 2019.
