Terrasmart announced the release of a new hail stow feature for its single-axis tracker,TerraTrak.

The risk of damage to solar plants from hail storms has increased with the frequency of extreme weather evens. Over the past five years, hail damage has caused more than 50% of total insured project losses, said hail risk expert VDE. Though infrequent, these events can produce record losses. In 2022, hail losses exceeded $300 million in Texas alone. Forty-year financial exposure models from engineering firm VDE Americas suggest that hail events could result in up to $13 million in damage at 0° tilt, compared to only $620,000 at 60°.

Terrasmart’s new hail stow capability mitigates that risk with its PeakYield, cloud-based tracker control and monitoring software platform. Terrasmart reports that the hail mitigation system automatically triggers optimum stow position to protect solar assets without requiring operator intervention.

Available for both 1P and 2P trackers, the hail stow solution adds to Terrasmart’s racking portfolio. The portfolio offers both ground screw and driven piles, designed to perform in the most extreme terrain and weather conditions.

“Project de-risking has, and continues to be, our most significant contribution to the solar industry,” says Terrasmart president Ed McKiernan. “Our new hail stow feature adds to our existing array of foundation and racking products that bring unique reliability to unreliable sites.”

Terrasmart outlines the following advantages of its hail stow feature:

• Automatic stow feature puts trackers into safe position without requiring operator intervention, reducing potential lapses from human factors
• High-tilt stow angle accounts for both wind and hail conditions, eliminating contradicting positions and ensuring a safe tracker position (+/- 50° for 1P and +/- 60° for 2P)
• Real-time, cloud-based weather forecast triggers activate based on industry-leading data from Accuweather
• Auto-stow feature activates 60 minutes before a weather event but timing can be customized to meet owner requirements
• Stow function does not require installing additional hardware or calibration over time

“Our motto at Terrasmart is to stow early and stow often,” says Ashton Vandermark, Terrasmart’s software solutions lead. “We are adamant about automatically triggering hail protection to avoid instances where manual intervention has not occurred during storms. We are excited about this latest addition to PeakYield’s cloud-based functionality and machine-learning intelligence to protect assets.”

Terrasmart, owned by Gibraltar Industries, has more than 25 GWs of solar deployed across 6,000 PV systems.

Terrasmart’s software team will be at RE+ in Anaheim September 10 to 12 in booth #D30011 to give live demos of PeakYield as well as discuss hail stow and other TerraTrak features.

EagleView, a provider of aerial imagery and analytics, and Aurora Solar, a platform for solar sales and design, announced the launch of EagleView Powered models through the Aurora Solar Platform.

This new modeling capability is the result of the partnership between the two companies when, in March of this year, it was announced that Aurora would make use of EagleView’s high-resolution imagery taken from its aircraft fleet.

Aurora Solar, established in 2013, offers a cloud-based platform that uses lidar-based vision and machine learning algorithms to streamline the process of selling solar.

By adding EagleView’s 3D home modelling technology into Aurora’s platform, Aurora reports it can provide roof models that predict final details of the project installation and solar electricity production output for homeowners.

“We understand that improvements in cost and trust are essential to the growth and healthy functioning of the solar industry,” shared Piers Dormeyer, CEO of EagleView. “We know we can help solve this challenge because we’re in our third decade doing the exact same thing in roofing and insurance.” 

EagleView can leverage oblique and orthogonal imagery. The company said it has used its patented technologies to develop over three billion images. It provides “truth in accurate property measurement and analytics solutions” not only in the solar industry with Aurora but also in roofing, insurance and other industries.

EagleView reports that its geospatial data and imagery library encompasses 94% of the U.S. population and that its technology portfolio comprises more than 300 patents.

With the entrants of diverse distributed energy resources (DERs) and new utility requirements, optimizing and monetizing solar energy systems have become increasingly complex. However, monitoring and control technology are struggling to keep pace and meet these more sophisticated demands.

If the industry does not want to be hampered by its reliance on outdated monitoring and control technology, it needs to quickly leverage this window of opportunity to upgrade the capabilities of supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) by leveraging more advanced grid-edge, cloud computing, IoT-based technology that can support the integration of AI and help create a smarter grid.

SCADA is a technology that dates back to the 1970s and the solar energy industry originally made it a standard by adopting it from fossil fuel power stations. Over the past decade and a half, when solar was in its infancy and a small share of the grid, SCADA’s limited protocols met the grid’s requirements. But as the industry has evolved, SCADA is being stretched beyond its original design and is struggling to keep pace. Its drawbacks are beginning to hold back our industry’s advancement. For instance, as solar is increasingly coupled with batteries, EV chargers, and other types of DERs, SCADA’s lack of interconnectivity and interoperability with diverse hardware has increasing impact on compatibility and scalability.

Another example is that SCADA is more effectively used for daily operations versus storing big data that AI can leverage to improve long-term operations. Plus, the programmable logic controller (PLC)-based architectures do not support the more sophisticated controls increasingly being required by utilities. Overall, solar has outgrown the limits of SCADA and has quickly become too dynamic for a SCADA-only approach.

By using a software-first approach and connecting directly to onsite hardware, including inverters, batteries, RGMs, and other DERs, or through the manufacturers’ servers, new cloud computing technology can leverage industrial IoT protocols and extend the capabilities of SCADA. By overcoming the limitations of SCADA, a number of crucial benefits are unlocked for grid operators, O&M providers, IPPs, and asset owners, while also ushering in the age of a smarter grid.

The initial advantage of transitioning from a PLC-based hardware approach to a smart agent backed by cloud computing is that it drastically expands the types of controls that are available to clean energy assets. Unlike PLCs, that are simple logic-based programs pre-installed on a power plant controller (PPC) that has limited storage and memory, when controls are managed in the cloud there is no limit to how many controls or insights can be provided. In fact, it completely eliminates the concept of a control library because controls can continuously be added and optimized.

Instead of a static library, it becomes a growing and evolving tool that improves over time. This means that controls like arbitrage, peak shaving, frequency regulation, voltage support, peaker replacement, and energy shifting, can advance with the changing needs.

Another benefit of supplementing SCADA with cloud computing is being able to combine and analyze energy production data with thermal analysis to not only provide automatic alerts with minimal false positives, but also root cause analysis and precise recommendations for resolutions. This type of computing power is not available on site and is not possible with a SCADA-only approach.

That leads to a key secondary benefit of extending SCADA’s capabilities by augmenting it with cloud computing. SCADA is designed for managing power plants as siloed energy assets, but our grid is becoming more interconnected, and these distributed assets need to start working together in a more coordinated manner – both for grid stability and asset optimization. By managing controls in the cloud, distributed assets can be combined and managed as a whole. This completely surpasses the current single pane of glass concept for monitoring and controls that the industry has used as a gold standard up until now, and instead creates an advanced and cost-effective aggregator solution that is future ready.

While an aggregator offers many benefits on its own, it provides further benefit when artificial intelligence (AI) is added to the equation. By aggregating and analyzing data from multiple sites in the cloud, AI has access to more data points, enabling it to get smarter, faster; meaning better grid support and better monetization.

While SCADA has been hailed for its security, one of the reasons it is considered more secure is because of its limited functionality – limiting the opportunity for asset optimization and grid stability. Plus, its use of outdated and unencrypted protocols actually make it fairly simple to gain unauthorized access. But with industrial IoT, high-levels of encryption and verifications, significantly increase cybersecurity capabilities.

With the addition of next-generation IoT and cloud computing as part of the monitoring and controls toolbox, the solar industry can position itself to lead the entire energy industry into the era of a smart grid, where things like real-time energy trading will be ubiquitous. While a SCADA-only approach may have worked for simple unidirectional supply-side management with grid-following assets, it simply does not have the functionality to support grid-forming clean energy assets, which will herald in the age of an interconnected, dynamic, AI-powered grid.

Dekel Yaacov is the CTO and co-founder of enSights.ai, a SaaS platform. Dekel brings a wealth of experience in SaaS-based platforms and the cyber security field to drive the development of innovative solutions. 

Paces, a GIS and data platform, recently completed its Series A funding round, raising $11 million.

The round was led by Navitas Capital, an early stage venture capital fund, with participation from Suffolk Technologies and MCJ Collective, and existing investors Resolute Ventures, Soma Capital, and Y Combinator.

Paces provides software solutions to renewable energy developers that is designed to reduce time and provide transparency to site origination and permitting processes.

‍“Meeting the challenge of the energy transition requires new solutions to enable development of the energy ecosystem,” said Louis Schotsky, managing partner, Navitas Capital. “We are incredibly excited to support Paces as they expand their transformative approach to pre-construction for grid-connected projects. Paces is tackling the critical challenges of electrifying our economy, accelerating the development of renewable energy and industrial load projects and streamlining the energy ecosystem.”

Paces reports that its software streamlines the traditionally manual process of site selection and project due diligence by consolidating and interpreting spatial, zoning, permitting, interconnection, and environmental data.

The software lets developers use their own custom parameters to locate the most viable sites for development. Then by using local, state and federal zoning, permitting and geospatial data, its core tool, Permitting Predictor, assesses risk and delivers concise summaries to empower developers to make informed decisions during due diligence.

‍“The Paces platform has significantly improved our site selection process and quality control, allowing us to increase the number of solar projects we deliver to communities across the country,” said Ned Horneffer, director of development, Third Pillar Solar. ‍

The company reports that it will put the $11 million in new funding to use in enhancing its software platform, expanding availability of Permitting Predictor across the U.S. and enhancing its data intelligence.

“Paces is committed to maximizing the climate benefits of every piece of land,” said James McWalter, co-founder and CEO, Paces.  “By expanding our capabilities to accelerate additional components of the due diligence process and serving new sectors like EV charging and data centers, we’re taking a significant step towards realizing this goal. This Series A funding will fuel our growth and impact, allowing us to enhance our platform and support the entire clean energy infrastructure ecosystem.”

Paces reports that its current client list includes EDF Renewables, AES, along with Third Pillar Solar.

Fracsun has unveiled a new software tool that combines ground-level measurements and weather data to model a typical year of soiling losses for any location in the U.S.

Soiling is the accumulation of dust, dirt, and debris like bird droppings on the face of solar panels. It can lead to significant reductions in electricity production and in some cases cause hot spots that damage the panels.

Fracsun’s AI-backed software tool, called CLEO AI, enables solar developers to fine-tune their production models and improve energy yield assumptions.

CLEO AI integrates evolving factors like fine particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) concentrations, nitrate and sulfate levels, seasonal trends, and the impacts of wind and precipitation.

The solution builds on Fracsun’s network of soiling monitoring stations deployed across 27 countries and representing over 12 GW of installed solar capacity. Through machine learning, the software continuously learns from this growing dataset, incorporating new parameters like module tilt and weather forecasts to deliver increasingly precise results.

“Soiling is a dynamic, site-specific challenge that can significantly impact solar asset performance over time,” said Catlin Mattheis, chief executive officer, Fracsun. “With the CLEO AI-powered model, our customers can now proactively manage this issue, optimizing maintenance plans and production forecasts to maximize their return on investment.

IEA-PVPS estimates that in 2018, soiling caused at least a 3% to 4% loss to global annual energy production from PV – amounting to lost revenue of $3.3 to $5.5 billion. And this is expected to increase to around 4% to 5%, and $4.4 billion to $7.6 billion this year, thanks to an increase in PV installations in regions highly prone to soiling, economic pressures, and the fact that more efficient PV modules will suffer larger losses to their output due to soiling.

Fracsun is now accepting applications for solar asset developers and owners to be part of CLEO AI’s Beta test group. During the early access period, developers can conduct up to 5 simulations to analyze the effects of soiling on their solar asset.

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. 

From pv magazine Global

Monalee, a U.S.-based software company has developed a web-based platform to enable investing in residential rooftop PV and related home energy systems. The company serves consumer solar PV markets in the states shown on the map.

The software provides estimates, quotes, financing, permitting, installation, and interconnection services after the homeowner enters their address, current bill, and choice of PV or battery, or both. It also calculates savings, a subsidy or credit calculator, and after-sales support via an app.

“Ordering and completing solar purchases must move online because that is what consumers want. They are used to it, even for major purchases such as buying a car,” Monalee CEO and co-founder Walid Halty, told pv magazine, adding that the challenge with solar is the need for site visits to be able to develop the project.

Monalee solved the site visit challenge by tapping into geographical information system (GIS) data and imagery from Google Maps via an application programming interface (API), known as Solar API.

“But the Solar API covered only half of the U.S.,” said Halty, describing how the company partnered with earth imaging specialists that provided photogrammetry LIDAR and drone imagery data for wider coverage.

Deep learning techniques were applied to enable the software to detect roof edges, for example, or to identify building features, such as a chimney or air conditioning units.

Monalee is a licensed general contractor and master electrician in 24 U.S. states. It works with small to midsize installers as sub-contractors, as well as other partners, such as equipment suppliers and finance providers to supply the services sold via its platform, according to Halty, who said that the company has served 1,900 homeowners since its founding in 2022. He attributes it to the service being “less time-consuming” and “more economical” compared to conventional methods.

Monalee reports that it uses Mitrex 405 solar panels and Tesla inverters. It is also a Certified Tesla dealer and uses the Tesla Powerwall for residents who opt for energy storage.

Offering lower prices has led to some unexpected results. “We were surprised to see demand in parts of the country, like Georgia, Alabama, and Kentucky, that are not typically big solar markets due to lower electricity prices. The largest market by volume are Florida and California, as expected,” said Halty.

Monalee has raised a total of $10 million in venture capital, with the most recent round closing in March 2024. The company has plans to expand to 35 states this year.

From pv magazine Global

PVRadar Labs, a Germany-based software company, has expanded the functionality of its PVRadar software platform, adding the ability to model utility-scale project performance using climate data, in addition to soiling and cleaning optimization.

“By using PVRadar developers can do a proper risk assessment to factor in snow losses, soiling, or albedo effects. It is especially useful for European or U.S.-based developers who are entering new geographic markets because the climate data is global,” PVRadar Labs co-founder and CEO, Thore Müller, told pv magazine.

“Originally, the software was set up to optimize PV module cleaning costs at the early stage of planning, but we found that many of our clients struggled to correctly determine loss factors for yield estimation. Usually they use simple tools, like excel spreadsheets, but there is a clear need for accurate prediction based on historic conditions, such as rainfall, snowfall, and particulate matter, for example.”

PVRadar provides historical climate data going back 20 years. It is based on geographical information system (GIS) sources, as well as national weather databases, if available. “We saw that for some project inputs, there is verifiable data available to developers, such as the price of the modules supplied by manufacturers, or the performance attributes supplied by testing labs. But it was not so with climate-related effects and loss factors. Therefore, all too often project developers rely on generalized assumptions, for example assuming a flat 2% soiling loss, which in many dry areas has no relation to reality,” said Müller.

The platform is complementary to internal workflows and commercially available design tools, such as PVCase, PVFarm, PVDesign, or PVSyst. It provides users with realistic loss factor inputs, according to Müller.

Access to the platform comes in two variations, either a single project license or a corporate subscription for unlimited projects. “We have twelve project development companies using the platform for multiple projects. That is because developers are usually assessing a lot more sites than they end up developing. It could be ten designs for every project that gets built,” Franco Clandestino, co-founder and head of product, told pv magazine.

Looking ahead, the team is working on additional risk assessment tools. “We will be continuously adding more models, for example, for the degradation rate, and we will also allow users to create their own models and feed them from our database,” said Müller.

Hail can cause significant damage to solar installations and is the root cause of half of insured project losses, according to risk expert VDE Americas. While hail cannot be avoided, damage can be prevented by tilting solar modules on a tracker, called stowing, turning the face of the modules away from the hail.

FTC Solar, a Texas-based solar tracker specialist, introduced the Automated Hail Stow Solution that uses meteorological data to automatically stow solar modules when a hail storm is on the horizon.

After collaborating with VDE Americas on studying the impact of hail events on solar installations, FTC developed a hail stow strategy that positions solar modules to minimize the impact from direct hail and wind.

The automated hail stow solution integrates with FTC’s Sunops, a cloud-based PV asset monitoring solution designed to manage and improve solar asset performance. FTC reports the software considers factors like advanced tracking algorithms and appropriate tracker stowing for extreme weather events.

Ken Kozizki, chief marketing officer of FTC Solar told pv magazine USA that the tracker quickly moves to >50 degree hail stow with modules facing away from the wind in response to the meteorological predictive data. The hail-stow algorithm is driven by meteorological data that FTC gets from an industry-leading third party provider, and weather conditions are analyzed using multiple radars that combine to form an accurate forecast for a single location.

There is also a feature that allows the plant manager to manually move to the nearest high angle stow to further reduce stow time, Kozizki said. Stow thresholds can also be customized, based on risk appetite and site location, including factors such as hail size, probability and radius.

U.S.-based PVFarm has launched a web-based PV plant design application for professionals involved in the early stages of the design cycle of utility-scale and commercial and industrial (C&I) projects.

The subscription-based tool offers rapid feedback on the implications of design decisions about layouts, equipment, grading, and electrical systems at the start of the project workflow. “It is a critical phase of the project with a lasting impact. Decisions have a thirty-year tail,” PVFarm head of technology, Maksim Markevich told pv magazine. “Currently we offer a paid product license after a co-piloted trial where we work with potential users to evaluate a real project with PVFarm.”

Users can mix equipment and electrical designs, or run different grading strategies across an entire site or field-by-field, according to the company. Layouts can be edited multiple times. Advanced algorithms help to quickly identify the most efficient options.

“The application was three years in the making. Our team has eight years of experience developing design automation software for other industries,” said Markevich.

Suitable for fixed ground mounted or single-axis tracking plants, the application reportedly supports financial, energy performance, electrical, civil, mechanical, and procurement aspects.  It has a building information model (BIM) functionality for modeling and provides information about objects to team members for analysis, exploration, or comparisons.

Multiple file formats are supported and there is compatibility with other tools, such as Autodesk and PvSyst. “By bringing all these aspects together in one platform, PVFarm enables users to evaluate opportunities and trade-offs holistically, ensuring informed decision-making,” said Markevich.

“The application was three years in the making. Our team has eight years of experience developing design automation software for other industries,” said Markevich.

Stem Inc. announced its Q1, 2024 earnings, showing a decline in revenues and increasing losses. The AI-driven software provider for clean energy asset operations saw its stock price dip over 20% in the trading session the day after earnings were reported.

Revenues for Q1 were $25.5 million, down 62% year-over-year from the first quarter of 2023. The company said the lowered revenues reflect a $33 million reduction due to an updated valuation of certain contract guarantees and hardware revenue recorded in 2022 and 2023. The revenue dip was a shock to Wall Street, coming in nearly 60% lower than consensus expectations.

The company posted net losses of $72.3 million. It ended Q1 2024 reporting $112.8 million in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments. The company also improved its operating cash flow from $(35.8) million in Q1 2023 to $(0.6) million in Q1 2024. Gross margin climbed to 24%, up from 19% a year before.

“The first quarter represented Stem’s continuing efforts to maximize cash flow generation in 2024 through cost control and converting receivables to cash,” said John Carrington, chief executive officer, Stem. “During the quarter, we also canceled certain less profitable contracts in both our hardware and software backlog to focus on higher-margin opportunities.”

Carrington said the company “remains confident” in Stem’s ability to generate more than $50 million in operating cash flow for the full year 2024.

“As we expected with our expansion into large-scale front-of-the-meter (FTM) storage projects, our bookings have become increasingly variable on a quarterly basis,” said Carrington. “We reiterate our full-year $1.5 to $2.0 billion bookings target for 2024, based on contracts that are in advanced stages of negotiation or are expected to close in the near-term.”

Stem maintained its guidance for positive adjusted EBITDA and operating cash flow for the full-year 2024, and said it expects meaningful year-over-year growth in its software services revenue.

Software suite

Stem announced it has released a new software suite for asset performance management called PowerTrack. The company said the software enables owners, operators and asset managers to streamline management of storage, solar, and hybrid energy asset portfolios.

The software suite includes configurable, persona-based dashboards and workflows. Users can track information from portfolio-level technical and commercial performance to site-level and granular device-level data.

“Built on the dual foundation of Stem’s solar asset monitoring software and the Athena platform, PowerTrack APM revolutionizes how technical asset managers, commercial asset managers, and operations managers collaborate around a unified set of metrics and streamlined processes,” said Carrington.

Asset management of Energy Storage Systems (ESS) is a game changer that makes the tools, processes, and strategies used with other asset classes obsolete,” said Cedric Brehaut, senior vice president of product at Stem.

Technical and commercial performance are linked by a complex web of revenue streams, technologies, contracts, and warranty constraints. Stem said its software suite is designed to navigate these factors.

“PowerTrack APM helps owners and operators of storage, solar, and hybrid assets understand the commercial impact of technical decisions and the technical impact of commercial strategies, so they can more effectively and efficiently manage risk and drive returns,” said Brehaut.

The suite offers monitoring, commercial performance tracking, energy storage system warranty management and verification, automated operations center processes, commercial impact measurements from technical events, and more.

U.S. solar industry week in review  pv magazine USA spotlights news stories of the past week including market trends, project updates, policy changes and more.

Legal experts dispel fourteen false claims about solar, wind and electric vehicles  The Columbia Law School collected and rebutted 33 false claims against clean energy technology as part of its ongoing research on climate change.

Enphase Energy releases control software for home solar, battery systems Enphase Energy, a California-based microinverter specialist, says its new power control system will give North American customers that use its energy systems more flexibility to build larger projects.

A new twist on thermal storage  PowerPanel offers a PV and thermal storage solution that combines simple, safe and easy to manage hot water with advanced thermoplastic technology and architecture.

Mercedes to bolster PV system at manufacturing facility with SolidFlow battery  The goal is to have a green energy source that runs around the clock.

Solar cell prices fall for 3rd consecutive week 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.

Final rules for renewable energy development on public lands The Bureau of Land Management issued final rules for renewables development on public lands.

From pv magazine global

Microinverter supplier Enphase has launched power control software designed for North American customers who use its Enphase Energy System.

The company said its Enphase Power Control system will give installers more flexibility in system design to build larger systems, while also helping them to avoid costly main panel upgrades and meet utility and national electrical code requirements.

“Homeowners transitioning to solar energy systems want to minimize issues and costs during installations,” said Keith Kruetzfeldt, president of Suntegrity Solar, a California-based installer of Enphase products. “The Enphase Power Control software enables us to avoid main panel upgrades in many situations which results in significant savings and better return on investment for our customers.”

The system is designed to enable second- and third-generation IQ Batteries to export stored electricity to the grid for economic benefit, said Enphase. It added that the system will enable installers to build batteries up to 80 kWh by using its IQ Battery 5P, which doubles the capacity of prior Enphase Energy battery generations.

The software can support a range of solar-only and solar-plus-storage combinations, including grid-tied and grid-forming applications.

Enphase Energy plans to launch additional power control functionality in the third quarter of this year, including support for busbar power control, which it said will enable homeowners to extract more power from their systems, while ensuring the main load panels of homes are within safe limits. The company said that later this year it plans to include its power control feature in Solargraf, its cloud-based design, proposal, and permitting software platform.

Toward the end of last year, Enphase Energy launched its IQ EV charger, unveiled new three-phase inverters for the small commercial market, and introduced a commercial-scale microinverter with 480 W of peak power output.

In February, it began shipping updated IQ8 microinverters in North America.

Free solar projection tool beats commercial competition  NYSolarCast, a solar projection tool developed by the state of New York to handle its growing base of solar power facilities, demonstrated equal or superior performance compared to competing commercial alternatives, according to a year-long analysis.

Illinois agrivoltaic project successfully permitted, despite local challenge  The 4.95 MW Nesler Road agrivoltaic/community solar project will be installed on 36 acres and will grow hay along with generating enough clean, renewable solar energy to power 1,100 Illinois homes each year.

Livestream shows how eclipse impacts solar power production across the U.S.  The 2024 solar eclipse will bring a few minutes of total darkness to twelve states as it cuts its path from Texas to Maine, and interest in how it will affect solar production brings to light the importance of solar energy on today’s grid.

Federal community solar program extends $31 average monthly bill savings to low-income households Residents in eligible states can save on their electricity bills by subscribing to community solar via the Clean Energy Connector software. The Department of Energy is inviting more states to join the program, which vets solar providers and integrates consumer protections.

Researchers have found that NYSolarCast, New York state’s dedicated tool for predicting solar generation forecasts, is often more accurate in predicting solar generation than existing tools, and is also updated more frequently, every 15 minutes. The study, NYSolarCast: A Solar Power Forecasting System for New York State, shows the tool’s proficiency in forecasting global horizontal irradiance (GHI) using data from various locations in the state, often outshining its commercial counterparts.

The New York Independent System Operator (ISO) region, exclusive to the Empire State, employs five-minute wholesale electricity settling periods, segmenting electricity sales into five-minute intervals for efficient grid distribution. With natural fluctuation from wind and solar energy, plus the addition of substantial and rapidly responsive energy storage systems, the utility of frequently updated electricity generation projections cannot be overstated. This step mirrors global advancements in energy management, similar to the significant industry shift witnessed when Australia commenced its transition to five-minute settlements.

NYSolarCast, developed by researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in 2021, was tailored to help New York state manage its expanding solar power infrastructure. The tool’s forecasts of GHI, which is an indicator of potential electricity production from solar plants, are updated every 15 minutes at select solar farms and on an hourly basis for each zip code.

The tool’s predictive accuracy is honed by training on a plethora of data streams. This includes three years of real-world data from 10 utility-scale solar power plants and 490 distributed solar sites, paired with the corresponding weather conditions when available. These data points are further enriched by weather information from New York state’s expansive network of 126 NYS Mesonet stations.

NYSolarCast aligns its forecasts with the data from Mesonet weather stations, shown below:

The NYS Mesonet is a comprehensive network of 126 surface weather stations that deliver “real-time averaged observations at a temporal resolution of 5 minutes.” These stations, spaced approximately 19 miles apart, ensure at least one station per county across all 62 counties and the five boroughs of New York City. They monitor and transmit data on a variety of atmospheric parameters, including temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, GHI, wind velocity and direction, and precipitation.

The research team notes that while NYSolarCast is open source and therefore freely accessible and usable by all, it may serve best as a framework rather than direct code application. This is attributed to the distinct weather input features of New York state, which vary greatly from region to region, each necessitating tailored tools and resources.

The source code of the tool is available for download on GitHub.

When analyzing the data, the authors conducted tests to determine the importance of various predictors (factors that influence the accuracy of their solar generation forecasts). They discovered that certain key pieces of data, such as weather conditions or solar irradiance levels, were only relevant for a short period, around 45 minutes before conditions changed.

The authors observed that prediction errors varied throughout the day, with a noticeable increase in the late afternoon to evening hours. They attributed this rise in inaccuracies to the data becoming less current as the day progresses. While this time frame doesn’t align with the peak solar generation period of 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the evening hours are often marked by higher electricity costs on the grid, making accurate predictions especially valuable.

Throughout a one-year validation period, wherein forecasts “were produced and delivered on a quasi-operational schedule,” the findings presented a complex and nuanced picture. Despite revealing various potential areas for improvement, the core results of the study remained clear:

NYSolarCast GHI forecasts overall out-performed both smart persistence and the NWP blended forecast of hourly-issued WRF-Solar and HRRR models at all intra-day (out to 6 hours) lead and valid times.

Furthermore, the forecasts made by NYSolarCast were “nearly always better” than those derived from tools situated precisely at the weather stations. This is likely because the tool could analyze real-time data straight from active solar farms, unlike weather stations, which had limited access to real-time data.

One potential area for improvement identified by the researchers is the integration of real-time data from the utility-scale solar facility pyranometers, which measure the intensity of solar radiation. Although this data contributed to the validation process, its inclusion in the predictive phase was hindered by the delay in data accessibility.

New solar antidumping tariffs are on the way, said Roth  The solar industry experienced project delays and cancellations when antidumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) tariff enforcement threatened supply in the past. Another round may be on the way as soon as this April, said a note from Roth Capital Partners.

SolarEdge acquires EV charging optimization and management startup Wevo Energy becomes a subsidiary of SolarEdge, and together the companies plan to integrate the Wevo’s software solution into the SolarEdge ONE energy optimization system for the commercial and industrial (C&I) segment.

Bluetti releases 2.4 kW portable power station  Bluetti has unveiled a new portable, weatherproof power station featuring a lithium iron phosphate battery with 1,536 Wh of power capacity and a rated output of 2,400 W.

Lion Energy introduces C&I energy storage solutions  The U.S.-made Powersave systems provide lithium iron phosphate back-up power that can be integrated with renewable energy sources.

NREL releases online tool to estimate pumped hydro storage costs The National Renewable Energy Laboratory released a cost-estimation tool for new closed-loop pumped storage hydropower plants in the United States. The tool allows operators to select from a range of system characteristics and account for factors such as local geology, labor rates and inflation.

Non-lithium battery startup nets $78 million Series C funding Alsym Energy is developing a non-flammable battery that is lithium and cobalt free.

Vehicle-integrated photovoltaics making the moves from niche to mainstream  A new report from the International Energy Agency’s Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme (IEA-PVPS) looks at success factors required to take vehicle integrated photovoltaics (VIPV) from niche to mainstream based on a survey of 110 experts in the topic of transport and PV.

In June SolarEdge Technologies announced it was implementing a new software platform for the management of solar-attached EV charging facilities, and now it has bought the company.

The software was developed by Israel-based startup Wevo Energy. Its AI-based solution supports multiple chargers onto a single electric wire, the company reports, dynamically managing the available current between units enabling simultaneous charging of multiple cars.

Wevo Energy was founded in 2021 with the goal of bringing EV charging to densely populated parking areas. The solution is deployed at over 900 sites, electrifying over 60,000 parking spaces.

“As the EV market continues to grow, distributed renewable energy will be key to unlocking the full potential of the electrification of mobility,” said Zvi Lando, CEO, SolarEdge Technologies. “Wevo’s software capabilities and know-how represent a building block for EV-attached solar, and today it becomes a part of SolarEdge’s energy ecosystem.”

Designed to be vendor agnostic, Wevo’s software solution supports industry leading open protocols, enabling multi-user pricing and billing, tiered prioritization of charging schedules, predictive load management and additional services. Its load management technology uses AI to intelligently allocate power where it’s needed most, allowing sites to install more charging stations without expensive infrastructure upgrades, the company reports.

SolarEdge reports that the Wevo software will be part of the SolarEdge ONE energy optimization system for the commercial and industrial (C&I) segment, which is designed to offer a single solution that enables the integration of on-site solar generation, battery storage and large-scale EV charging for SolarEdge customers. SolarEdge ONE was previously targeted at the residential segment.

Wevo will operate as a subsidiary of SolarEdge, according to Teddy Flatau, Wevo Energy CEO. He said that the combined solution will offer “a seamless experience for EV drivers by optimizing charging with clean, solar-powered energy and maximizing cost savings. This will allow a significant step forward to achieving a low-carbon future.”

DOE funds heated sand energy storage project pilot  A modeled commercial-scale project storing energy in heated sand could produce 135 MW of power for five days. The U.S. Department of Energy is funding a pilot project intended to demonstrate commercial viability.

Off-grid solar bench with wireless charging and Wi-Fi A California university was provided off-grid solar powered benches by Bluebolt Outdoor.

Researchers discover additive that enhances perovskite coating process By adding an ionic pair stabilizer to perovskite cells enables coating to take place in ambient air, simplifying the manufacturing process.

Tigo Energy provides software and services for solar installation companies Installers participating in Tigo’s Green Glove program are guided from solar design through project commissioning.

Tigo Energy, a solar component and software provider, released a new Total Quality Solar training program that borrows from the manufacturing principles of total quality management, a principle that defines an organization-wide effort to continuously improve products and services. Total Quality Solar is part of the company’s new Green Glove training program, which guides commercial and industrial (C&I) installers from solar design through commissioning of their installations.

pv magazine USA spoke with JD Dillon, chief marketing officer at Tigo Energy at the NABCEP conference last month in Raleigh, where Tigo trainers led a session focused on TQS and the top five design and installation criteria for a successful installation. Dillon noted that after a slow period, solar bookings are back but the U.S. solar industry is challenged by misperceptions of the quality and longevity of solar installations. The growing trend, Dillon said, is in software and services like the Green Glove program, which helps the industry as a whole produce top quality work.

As part of the Green Glove program, Tigo support personnel provide guidance in the design phase, and then are available on call at regional Tigo locations during the installation. After installation, the support team conducts reviews and follow-up discussions.

One company that signed on to the Green Glove program is Circuit Energy Solutions, a Florida-based commercial solar installer that’s been in business for nearly 30 years.

“Optimizing the installation process is critically important to us because we operate in more than 15 U.S. states, and we got involved with the Green Glove program to help our installers deal with the wide variety of construction methods and designs they face,” said Brittany Johnson, project coordinator at Circuit Energy Solutions.

Aram Solar is another installer with deep experience that has signed to the Green Glove program. Based in California, Aram has been installing solar for 25 years. The company has used Tigo’s support for comprehensive design reviews as well for for offering assistance with multiple commercial solar installations.

“Through the Green Glove program, our installers now confidently navigate the intricacies of various construction methods and designs,” said Aram Alexander, owner of Aram Solar.

Tigo Energy was founded 17 years ago and specializes in the development and manufacture of Module Level Power Electronics (MLPE) hardware and software solutions designed to enhance safety, increase energy yield and lower operating costs of residential, commercial and utility-scale solar systems. The company reports that its MLPE platform monitors >1.5GWh installation daily.

“With thousands of engineering hours spent analyzing issues in C&I installations–regardless of whether those issues were related to Tigo products–Green Glove participants benefit from an unprecedented base of practical knowledge,” said Dillon.

Installers can register for the Green Glove program here.‍

The California Energy Commission (CEC) announced it will award smart home energy company Dcbel the largest tranche of funding under its Responsive, Easy Charging Products With Dynamic Signals (REDWDS) program, granting a total of $52 million. The program supports electric vehicle-to-grid and vehicle-to-X charging and discharging technologies. 

The competitive grant funds will support the deployment of home energy stations throughout California. Dcbel will collaborate with UC Davis, Berkeley Laboratory, Southern California Edison, Sonoma Clean Power, and Grid Alternatives, to execute the project. 

The REDWDS program focuses on funding projects that enable customers to readily respond to dynamic signals on the electric grid, minimizing charging and discharging costs for electric vehicles at home. 

Dcbel’s solution is comprised of a home energy station, a UL certified bidirectional DC electric vehicle charger that doubles as a solar and stationary battery inverter. The home energy system is controlled by the company’s edge computing platform, called Orchestrate, which plans whether to use, store, or sell electricity based on grid price signals and homeowner preferences. The company’s solution also includes Dcbel Chorus, a real-time technical aggregation Internet of Things (IoT) software platform. 

“With minimal intervention, [home energy station] customers will find their EV charged and ready when they need it using the least costly energy source available,” said Dcbel. “Customers can subscribe seamlessly and safely to multiple energy programs provided by utilities, energy service providers, microgrids and virtual power plants through Dcbel’s app-based platform.” 

The company said customers can partake in vehicle-to-grid incentive programs by browsing the Dcbel app hub, making it easier for customers to access such programs. 

In addition to revenues provided by dynamic grid response, Dcbel said its customers can benefit from increased energy independence and resilience. The home energy station can power homes through grid outages lasting multiple days by leveraging the large amount of energy stored in EVs. For increased energy independence, customers can connect solar panels and a home battery to the home energy station. 

“Our all-in-one solution is ready to change the way homes interact with the grid and, crucially, allows people to make use of their EV’s energy for backup power and to discharge their EV battery to provide grid flexibility services,” said Dan Fletcher, chief business development officer, Dcbel. 

Homeowners are pairing battery backup with solar for many reasons including ensured resilience and as a response to increasing cuts to net metering programs. Wood Mackenzie recently launched its US Distributed Solar-plus-storage Leaderboard to track this market, and found that in Q3 2023, 11% of residential solar and 5% of non-residential solar installations are paired with storage.

While there have been many new entrants to this market in the past year, the Wood Mac report found that just three vendors have held an average of 80% of the market from 2018 through Q3 2023: Tesla, LG and Enphase. But the tide is turning as others move into top spots, and new entrants with well-known names offer complete solutions.

“These companies continue to dominate the market; however, they have recently come under pressure from new entrants,” said Max Issokson, a research analyst at Wood Mackenzie and author of the new report. “Whereas Tesla and LG products were installed on 96% of residential solar-plus-storage projects in 2018, they made up 65% of installations in 2023 through Q3.”

Tesla claims the top spot in Wood Mackenzie’s residential solar-plus-storage rankings with a market share of 30.2% in 2023 through Q3, followed by Sunrun at 20.5% and SunPower at 4.6%.

The market has opened up to many new entrants in part due to the increase in residential solar installations spurred by passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which boosted the Investment Tax Credit to 30% through 2032. Well-known energy equipment companies including SunPower, Generac and SolarEdge are relatively new entrants who quickly moved into top spots on the Leaderboard.

SunPower made a few good moves that propelled it toward the top of the chart for residential storage. For example, the company signed a collaboration agreement with General Motors to deploy home energy storage systems for residential electric vehicle charging and was named GM’s preferred EV charger installer and solar provider. The company also signed an agreement with a large home builder, Dream Finders Homes, to deploy its solar-plus-storage system on its new homes.

Generac, a leader in traditional generators, entered the solar, EV charger and residential solar-plus-storage markets in recent years. Its PWRcell is the 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 can detect spikes in demand, which signal 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. 

Enphase Energy, long known for its microinverters, is also in the residential storage business. The company is eyeing the California residential solar market for its new Enphase Energy System with the IQ Battery 5P. The California NEM 3.0 went into effect in April is slashing payments by 75% for excess solar production sent to the grid. Enphase reports that its system is optimized to support the new NEM 3.0 rules by enabling self-consumption and exporting energy at the appropriate times to create maximum value.

“California continues to be one of our top markets and the new IQ Battery 5P will enable our customers to maximize the value of their home solar systems with the new net metering rules,” said Bryson Solomon, chief executive officer of Infinity Energy, a Rocklin, Calif.-based installer of residential and commercial solar and storage.

According to the Wood Mac report, the solar-plus-storage market is much more consolidated than the residential installation market. The top five players in the residential solar-plus-storage market hold 59% of the market, whereas the top five in residential solar hold just 24%, noted Issokson.

Even with the top five players holding more than half the market, other companies have entered the market with residential offerings. A few of these include FranklinWH, SMA and Schneider Electric.

The integrated battery and control system in the Franklin Whole Home (WH) system, which debuted in 2022, has a built-in adaptive learning algorithms is inverter-agnostic, comes EV charger ready, and is designed to turn a home into a micro-grid when the grid is down, the company reports. According to the Wood Mac report, FranklinWH, less than two years after launching its first storage project, ranks eighth among manufacturers nationally.

Inverter specialist SMA recently announced a new residential energy storage solution that includes the Sunny Boy Smart Energy hybrid inverter. The company reports that the energy storage solution can be equipped with SMA’s Backup Secure to control the home’s energy, sending it to chosen appliances when needed.

Schneider Home platform is an energy management system (EMS) that integrates energy endpoints and household appliances in one interface, and it can be monitored with a single smartphone application. Released a year ago at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the company says that Schneider’s residential system allows users to not only monitor the energy consumption of household appliances, but it allows users to prioritize power during outages.

ABB Electrification’s Smart Buildings Division led the strategic investment in Lumin, with participation from Lumin’s primary institutional investor, Carbon Drawdown.

ABB plans to help Lumin accelerate its accessible home energy management solutions, which complement ABB’s residential portfolio.

“Our focus is on meeting the growing demand for integrated, easy to use, flexible products and solutions to help customers effectively manage their energy usage and lower energy costs as fast as possible,” said Mike Mustapha, president of ABB Electrification’s smart buildings division. “This latest collaboration is a testament not just to our commitment to the North American residential sector, but to strengthening customer value through partnerships globally. The data gathered through this partnership will hone future product innovation as customer needs evolve.”

Lumin currently offers homeowner and installer hardware and software solutions, including Lumin Edge, a modular system currently under development. 

Lumin Smart panel, available now, is an example of Lumin’s philosophy of “Control What Matters,” which, the company reports, means that by controlling no more than twelve circuits with one Lumin Smart Panel, it enables the product to sell at a lower price point and makes installation quicker and easier than the competition. As an addition to a circuit breaker, rather than a circuit breaker replacement, it enables it to be universally compatible with all existing circuit breakers, batteries, and inverters.

“As an established player in the industry, Lumin’s agility and expertise, coupled with a strong competitive position, align perfectly with our investment criteria,” says Mads Moeller, head of ventures at ABB Electrification. “This collaboration allows us to expand our home energy management capabilities in the North American residential sector, where we aim to bring value and affordability to home energy solutions.”

ABB has a broad range of power electronics product offerings including electric vehicle charging solutions from compact AC wallboxes, DC fast charging stations with robust connectivity, and more.

A first joint offering developed by Lumin in conjuction with ABB is expected to come to market in early 2024.

Long has the renewable energy industry waited for this moment: Riding the momentum of the past decade, dominant renewable technologies have reached cost-competitiveness with fossil fuels, and other emerging technologies that support the decarbonization of food, water, and waste are diversifying a quickly evolving and expanding market. And, of course, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) unlocked historic federal funding levels and established unprecedented legislative certainty for long-term industry support. Stronger and with more capital than ever, experts agree that the market is primed for rapid and explosive growth. 

Critical to this growth will be project management software for renewable energy development that provides seamless documentation and data management while enabling banks, lenders, and developers alike to manage complexity, mitigate risk and maximize returns at scale. 

But despite the clear need for innovation, traditional financial institutions have historically resisted adopting new technologies for project finance, opting instead to augment archaic legacy systems with spreadsheets, emails and PDFs. Bluntly put, this approach is short-sighted, inefficient, and expensive. These processes require too much time and manual labor from already slim teams while exposing counterparties to increased complexity and higher risk. In fact, a single loan can require 150 hours of unnecessary labor while also losing up to 70 bps.

Banks clinging to yesterday’s outdated tools will be woefully underprepared to scale efficiently for tomorrow’s challenges and profit from the market’s imminent growth, especially as assets become more distributed. With higher volumes of transactions comes higher mountains of paperwork that can critically delay a deal or wash away the margins with overhead.

The good news? Unlike the multifaceted issues of transmission infrastructure expansion or interconnection reform, this can be addressed primarily with technology: The industry can adopt a digital data management and risk monitoring strategy that leverages today’s automation and optimization technologies. 

By bringing project finance tools into the 21st century, financiers can increase transparency and liquidity, tighten timelines and overhead, and reduce barriers to entry, fostering a flourishing, diverse, and scalable sustainable infrastructure market. 

Need for better tools  

Historically, traditional utility-scale energy infrastructure deals have relied on a Frankensteined combination of multiple on-prem systems bolstered by webs of spreadsheets and other static documents. This translates to time-consuming manual processes, workflow redundancy, and opaque, disorganized data management. 

Already highly cumbersome for managing large deals, this approach becomes prohibitively costly when investing in smaller distributed projects that have more data, contracts, and counterparties: The overhead required to finance a single $1 billion deal pales compared to the overhead required to finance 1,000 $1 million deals. A lack of deal transparency further stifles market diversity, as significant, entrenched players have typically been the only ones with the specialized industry knowledge to confidently assess project risk, track covenants and navigate other deal complexities. 

While industry experts agree that the IRA’s legislative certainty and dedicated funding will undoubtedly accelerate market growth, the reality is that its tax credit, adder eligibility, and ongoing reporting requirements add multiple layers of complexity and risk that necessitate more organized and robust data management than what traditional tools can offer. 

Other areas of finance have certainly benefited by adopting automation, digitization, and other advancements in fintech. In a recent industry report, over 35% of American businesses reported that payment automation saves their finance teams more than 500 hours per year on average. These same gains in efficiency and cost savings can be achieved across renewable energy project finance; in fact, one green bank will save over 1,400 processing hours across 30 reduced steps by replacing its manual systems with end-to-end software. 

Three steps for growth

We’ve identified three steps that the sustainable infrastructure industry can take today to increase operational efficiency, decrease overhead, and accelerate deal velocity by adopting today’s technologies:

1.Initiate digitization today to build the foundation for future workflow automation.

Most challenges associated with today’s data management stem from siloed systems and the need for manual auditing, copying, and pasting. With a simple upgrade to centralized and digitized data management, organizations can prevent human error and minimize data inconsistencies and redundancies.

This simple step can not only lower the cost of capital and increase velocity and liquidity but also afford significant efficiency gains that accelerate market growth. For example, thanks to the digital data collection and automation afforded by fintech advancements, it now can take only minutes, instead of weeks, for a business to apply for and get approved for a commercial loan. Why can’t we do the same for project finance? 

2.  Create standardization to minimize risk and overhead, enabling a greater diversity of opportunities.

With a suite of tax credits that improve project economics for a wide range of technologies, the IRA is opening doors to more diverse opportunities within the sustainable infrastructure market – in particular, smaller deals in the 1 MW to 5 MW range are becoming more bankable. However, these opportunities are severely hampered by the bespoke nature of smaller projects that, combined with today’s inefficient processes and outdated tools, create barriers to investment in even the most low-risk, high-impact deals. 

While complete standardization of sustainable infrastructure may not be possible today, some modularization of deal components can be achieved. By identifying similar components across deals, banks can decrease complexity and create greater predictability, which in turn can improve workflow efficiency and reduce perceived risk, lowering barriers and creating more opportunities for new entrants to participate. 

3. Digitize compliance to take advantage of tax credits and manage ongoing requirements.

Today, Deal teams, often already small and overworked, must contend not only with increased volumes of opportunities but also with the mountains of data and documentation needed to track and measure eligibility for the IRA’s tax credits and adders. To be able to take full advantage of IRA benefits while also meeting requirements with auditable, organized documentation, the industry should increase transparency through centralized tracking and preparation of ongoing obligations.

In particular, a cloud-based data room can serve as a single source of truth, providing an infallible system of record and facilitating 360-degree visibility across all counterparties. This means that organizations can not only ensure an organized approach for evaluating and tracking tax credit eligibility with a clear digital audit trail of relevant documents but also hedge against future changes in guidelines and requirements. 

Evolve today to scale tomorrow

Today, more opportunities exist in the sustainable infrastructure market than ever before, and they are only predicted to grow in volume and diversity over the next decade. However, the industry’s slow adoption of more advanced, flexible, and accessible project finance tools will continue to limit deal velocity and increase barriers to entry, hindering the acceleration of market growth. To fully capitalize on C&I opportunities, the industry first needs to embrace existing technology to not only improve data access and management but also kickstart much-needed gains in operational efficiency, deal transparency, and standardization. 

As we start to reap the benefits of the IRA, it will become increasingly urgent to evolve project finance management tools. Bolstered by advanced technologies, we can bring capital more efficiently and cost-effectively to a liquid, diverse and scalable sustainable infrastructure market. 

Amanda Li, COO of Banyan Infrastructure, has over a decade of experience across sustainable infrastructure investing, management consulting in tech and finance sectors, and engineering. She leveraged experience from Generate Capital and McKinsey & Co. to co-found Banyan Infrastructure with CEO Will Greene in order to reduce the barriers for sustainable infrastructure financing through the company’s purpose-built project finance software. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has increasingly taken the spotlight for software companies looking to quickly leverage large amounts of data to create actionable results. Solar design and proposal platform provider Aurora Solar is embracing AI in its product offerings as the industry matures.

Aurora’s AI uses machine learning algorithms to construct 3D models of homes and their roofs in about 30 seconds. Launched in 2022, the AI platform has been continually honed based on customer feedback. With AI, solar companies can use predictive tools to identify top prospects, enable sales teams with design tools, and improve design efficiencies with automation.

“Move fast. Speed is one of your main advantages over large competitors,” said Sam Altman chief executive officer of OpenAI.

Aurora’s AI is applied to its full project cycle from lead capture to initial proposal generation, to final system design.

The software is trained on nearly half a million site models and generates imagery based on satellite and lidar data. Aurora said the end result is a fast and accurate proposal generation.

Aurora said its automated design tool has performed well when compared to manual designs. Aurora AI performed as well or better than a human 63% of the time for simple roofs, 83% of the time for moderate roofs, and 76% of the time for complex roofs, said the company.

As for speed, Aurora reports that its design generator vastly outpaced human designs. While a standard design service may range from 30 minutes to 24 hours, Aurora says its tool produced a design in 32 seconds on average, based on 340 trial runs of the software.

Over the past year, solar sales teams and designers used Aurora AI 1.6 million times, with strong sequential monthly growth, said the company.

“Aurora’s AI-powered software and onboarding services helped us transform traditional roofing specialists into solar roofing specialists in a day, and even helped one dealer get their first sale in week one,” said Mark Stevens, solar application manager, CertainTeed.

Aurora said it has the following goals to improve its AI-backed services:

• Applying improved land parcel data to improve automatic identification of property boundaries
• Updating the U.S. lidar database with the most recent and high resolution data available
• Increasing model training efficiencies and accuracy by consuming more training data faster
• Streamlining product features by consolidating AI SmartRoof and AI Roof faces
• Expanding Aurora AI’s capabilities to more markets outside of the U.S.
• Exploring and investing in more solar sales- and design-specific AI use cases

The global energy landscape is undergoing a transformative shift from traditional centralized grid networks to decentralized, distributed energy systems. At the same time, the U.S. is experiencing unprecedented grid load and supply growth shaped by ambitious net zero goals, supported by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and federal energy regulations like FERC Order 2222.

This evolution means we’re seeing huge market development and innovation, shown through massive proliferation of distributed energy resources (DERs), virtual power plants (VPPs), EVs, microgrids, small-scale renewables, distributed energy storage, and demand response solutions. A critical component for our net zero success and ability to modernize the aging grid infrastructure lies in understanding and embracing the concept of grid flexibility.

Challenging the norm

There has been $278 billion announced in new private clean energy investments, and $70B worth of grants, rebates, and other funding since the passing of the IRA. Despite this being a win for renewables, the surge in clean energy projects planned in the U.S. is outpacing the capabilities of many utilities and system operators (SOs), with a backlog of new interconnection requests hindering the process.

For these new low-carbon technologies to connect to the grid quickly and effectively, upgrades are needed to manage their additional impact (i.e., overloading circuits, voltage and frequency deviation) and variable generation patterns. On top of this, total electricity capacity in the U.S. is projected to double by 2050 to meet increasing electrification of industries, including heat and transportation, which leads to more strain on the grid than ever before.

A strategic and coordinated approach to integrate various clean energy solutions into the grid is vital to making space for the surge of renewables and electrification across the country, which is where “grid flexibility” enters the scene.

Defining grid flexibility

Grid flexibility refers to the ability to adapt quickly to changes in electricity supply and demand. Utilities have to continuously manage fluctuations in power generation and demand; flexible solutions, such as energy storage systems, help ensure renewables and new load can come online, while also reliably keeping the power on. For example, when there’s too much power on the system coming through from wind turbines on a gusty day, large-scale energy users could increase their energy usage.

If there’s not enough power, a storage system or aggregation of EVs can discharge to ensure there’s sufficient power coming through. By optimizing the deployment of renewables and DERs, grid operators can enhance the efficiency and resilience of the grid, reduce emissions, and achieve climate goals. Through embracing flexibility, utilities and system operators can also maximize systems already in place, avoiding costly grid upgrades and expensive gas peaking plants which are operated a small percentage of their potential uptime but will be stranded in an electrified future.

Localizing grid flexibility

Grid flexibility is not a new concept. The broad case for energy efficiency and demand response has been proven for decades now, and hundreds of programs are run across the country. However, the applications, types and sizes of DERs have changed dramatically in recent years.

Localized, rather than system-wide, flexibility is a major missing part of the flex equation. An increasingly electrified and decentralized grid will experience significant locational strains. One application for flexibility, non-wires alternatives (NWAs), has been a part of the U.S. energy grid for many years, but these programs are often inefficient, clunky, and not up to the job. But we can learn from the other countries who have already successfully implemented grid flexibility solutions that are easy-to-administer, open up new revenue streams for businesses, and ensure a smarter, more efficient energy system.

Implementing grid flexibility – U.S. case study:

We’re seeing that grid flexibility can lead to significant cost savings for both utilities and consumers. One great example of leveraging local flexibility for the NWA use case is Con Edison’s Brooklyn Queens Demand Management Program, which included energy efficiency, demand response, and distributed resources strategies that resulted in an estimated net benefit of $94.9 million.  We need to build on these learnings and rethink how we incentivize the development of the grid and our energy infrastructure.

Looking to the future

Momentum is building for grid flexibility in the U.S. as the country aims to decarbonize and strengthen domestic energy security, and it’s clear the time has come to establish a flexible, secure, reliable, and environmentally conscious energy system for generations to come. Successfully achieving flexible, sustainable grids will require a focus on localization, innovative market platforms, and coordination across partners to solidify a clean energy future.

John Bayard is chief commercial officer of Piclo, an independent marketplace for energy flexibility services, enabling system operators to source energy flexibility from flexible service providers during times of high demand or low supply.

Sustainable energy company Avangrid Inc. has announced a pilot project with LineVision Inc. that explores increasing New York’s current transmission capacity through monitoring software.  

The project will deploy advanced monitoring for overhead transmission lines in the Hornell, N.Y. area. This will reduce grid congestion by providing real-time data on where additional power can safely flow through the existing transmission infrastructure. If successful, this increased visibility could link more renewable energy resources to the state’s electrical grid. 

Historically, grid operators used static line ratings to decipher a grid’s energy capacity. They were applying the same weather assumptions to the entire grid regardless of the location of each line or the maximum continuous temperature it could withstand during its lifetime. This approach limited grid potential.

LineVision’s monitoring software observes and collects real-time data. Otherwise known as dynamic line ratings (DLR), the product determines the capacity limits of the power lines by assessing the current sag temperature and forecasted weather conditions in each region. The company reports that this increases the adaptability of transmission lines as they can more efficiently and safely increase the amount of energy flowing through them in response to current and evolving conditions. 

LineVision’s no-contact sensors also share insights on conductor health while detecting anomalies and risks. Moreover, the software can be deployed at scale without cutting off power. This combination can help stakeholders take a deep dive into understanding how to accelerate net-zero grid construction safely. “Our technology has helped our utility customers identify between 25% and 40% additional capacity on existing lines, which helps accelerate a transition to renewables,” said Hudson Gilmer, CEO and co-founder of LineVision.  

Monitoring current transmission lines decreases the necessity of large upgrades, which may help stabilize utility bills for New York residents. This is because the costs of incentivizing renewable electricity development and transmission upgrades are borne almost exclusively by the state’s utility customers through a charge per kilowatt hour of electricity consumed. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has spent almost $6.7 billion of ratepayer funds on various clean energy programs between 2008 and 2021, ​​The Office of the New York State Comptroller (NYSOSC), currently led by Thomas P. DiNapoli reports.

New York has the tenth highest utility bills in the nation, and charging consumers per unit of electricity used economically impacts low-income households the most. Part of the state’s CLCPA requires at least 35% of benefits be directed to members of disadvantaged communities. 

One NYSOSC report proposes programs that provide low-income electric customers with bill credits to lower their overall utility cost through community solar programs like the Solar for All Program. Other suggestions include limiting electric bills of low-income consumers to 6% of household income pending their participation in state-sponsored electric installation and appliance programs. 

LineVision will partner with Avangrid’s electric utility operating company, New York State Electric & Gas, to install a non-contact lidar that will monitor transmission lines running from Elma Wyo., to Strykersville Wyo., and Warsaw Wyo., to Perry Wyo.   

Funding for the project was awarded to Avangrid and LineVision through the second round of NYSERDA’s Future Grid Challenge program. It centers on researching and scaling transmission and distribution technologies to realize New York’s CLCPA goal of achieving 70% renewable energy by 2030.

Energy Toolbase, a provider of solar and storage software, announced it has added a solar production monitoring software product to its lineup. The company also provides project analysis, customer proposal generation, and smart energy management systems.

The new product, called ETB Monitor, is a platform designed to arm professionals and asset managers with economic and solar energy management. It is designed to help asset owners maximize their project’s value.

ETB Monitor is available both as a standalone product or as part of the company’s existing software suite called ETB Developer, which focuses on solar and storage proposal analysis. The new software enables users to seamlessly transition from the development stage all the way to the monitoring stage, said the company.

Energy Toolbase’s software is backed by a utility rates database, electric bill calculation engine, and an account management support staff.

The ETB Monitor provides visualizations of a solar site’s expected generation, calculated using the system characteristics and micro-climate satellite weather data. Users can track actual production and compare it to the expected baseline, enabling asset owners to identify potential issues, improve system performance, and reduce operational costs.

“With this innovative platform, energy professionals can track the economics of their solar energy systems in real-time and make informed decisions about their operations, ultimately leading to increased profitability and growth,” said John Gurski, founder and president, Energy Toolbase.

Sonnen, a provider of smart energy storage and virtual power plant (VPP) technology, announced it has released an optimized time-of-use solution designed to maximize customer value under California’s net energy metering (NEM) 3.0 regime.

NEM 3.0 in California cut the value of exporting excess solar generation to the grid by about 75% on average, making new solar-only rooftop installations less valuable than previous iterations of NEM rate structures. By including a battery with smart time-of-use based controls, homeowners can ensure that their PV array is generating value under the new rate structure.

With the new sonnenConnect program, the grid-interactive VPP combines the company’s batteries with an algorithm-based bill management system. The company said this results in electric bill reductions similar to, or exceeding expectations for NEM 2.0 systems.

The company will connect its batteries in a statewide network, responding to price signals embedded in the NEM 3.0 time of use rates. The company said this coordination of resources represents an acceleration of the energy transition.

The VPP program allows customers to participate in the CAISO wholesale energy market, earning cash rewards for balancing the California grid. As part of the program, customers can also access proactive backup power services to mitigate the impact of planned and unplanned grid outages.

Sonnen said its system is designed to offset peak loads daily, regardless of weather-related impacts on solar production. The time-of-use algorithm analyzes the day ahead, preparing for potential weather effects and planned grid events. In the cast of predicted insufficient PV generation the next day, the algorithm will partially charge the battery during super off-peak periods.

Sonnen said this will lead customers to not pay peak-period pricing at any point throughout the year, and that solar will not be wasted by way of low-value grid injection.

“Our German heritage has taught us a great deal about the potential of grid optimized energy storage systems, functioning as a single grid asset, providing authentic grid services for society in a manner that accelerates true energy transition,” said Blake Richetta, chairman and CEO of sonnen Inc.

With the VPP offering, Sonnen will expand its partnership with Baker Home Energy, serving customers in southern California. The company targets enrolling 6,000 batteries in Baker’s ChargeOn program in by 2025.

“With ChargeOn, Baker and sonnen’s joint VPP program, we have already differentiated ourselves from the competition by offering an unparalleled grid services package that generates cash rewards for our customers enrolled in sonnenConnect,” said Mike Teresso, President of Baker Home Energy.

Castillo Engineering, a solar installation company ranging from residential to mid-size utility-scale projects, announced it has launched SolarLetters.com to provide automated residential solar letters.

The company said it is the first in the U.S. to launch fully automated structural letters, professional engineer (PE) stamps and post-installation letters. It is compatible with all 50 U.S. states and some overseas markets.

The website utilizes a range of application programming interface (API) integrations, which the company said enables a 99% accuracy to rate to the documentation. It said that the website will further leverage artificial intelligence to speed the processing of solar letters and PE stamps. Currently, the website has the capacity to generate over 100,000 solar letters per month, said the company.

“The Solar Letters platform is a game-changer for LGCY,” said Ben Ogden, manager, design and engineering, LGCY Power. “It has simplified the structural and electrical engineering process and increased our turn times on stamped projects.”

Soft costs, permitting, and inefficient documentation processes are a persistent issue in the U.S. residential solar market. Soft costs represent any cost not tied directly to the cost of hardware itself. In the U.S., soft costs represent 65% of the project, said the Department of Energy (DOE). Shawn Rumery, senior director of research at SEIA, said since 2014, residential system costs have come down 25%, but soft costs have dropped only 15%. Customer acquisition and overhead costs have risen 31% in the same time period, Rumery said.

Many installation firms still use simple document or spreadsheet-based processes to file PE stamps and other letters.

“All of these methods have been tested and proven to be highly error prone, particularly with non-degreed engineers manually completing forty to fifty letters per day,” said SolarLetters.

The SolarLetters website incorporates data from over 40,000 authorities having jurisdiction (AHJ), and the company said it guarantees a 99% AHJ approval rate.

The company issues a full credit for any document that receives AHJ rejection and offers volume discounts through a Permit Partner Program. It also offers price matching to the lowest quote for its solar letter service.

“We are very excited to launch SolarLetters.com in response to the high demand for residential solar letters and PE stamps we are seeing globally,” said Christopher Castillo, chief executive officer of Solar Letters. “We look forward to providing the same elite customer service experience for SolarLetters.com clients as we do through Castillo Engineering. Helping solar installers drastically cut soft costs and mitigate project risks are necessary to ultimately enable solar energy to proliferate across the globe.”

FTC Solar, a solar tracker specialist with 4.5 GW of tracker projects, launched Sunops, a cloud-based PV asset monitoring solution designed to manage and improve solar asset performance.

Sunops software can be used on solar installations regardless of the type of tracker, and the company reports that it provides operations and maintenance (O&M) teams with actional insights to enhance energy generation.

“Tracker data is not always easy to get access to.” says Imran Hassan, the director of technical operations of ACT Power Services, one of the first beta users for the program. “The cloud-based SUNOPS platform saves my team time by allowing us to access the information I need when I need it.”

Sunops provides a tracker health assessment down to a single table, FTC reports. The software considers factors like advanced tracking algorithms and appropriate tracker stowing for extreme weather events, and it uses this data to determine the root cause of underperformance and to offer suggested solutions. By leveraging advanced tracker analytics, Sunops provides actionable insights that can help field teams resolve issues quickly to reduce energy losses.

The software is accessible through a secure cloud-based interface and offers streamlined portfolio data access. In addition, Sunops offers live site monitoring, historical performance tracking, and issue prioritization.

FTC Solar’s Digital Solutions offers a portfolio of products including Sundat for site design, Sunpath for optimized energy production and Atlas for solar portfolio management. Atlas, previously known as SAM (solar automation module) includes program management, financial reporting, and data management modules to assist with project execution from early stage development through commercial operation.

FTC Solar will debut Sunops in booth 3511 at RE+ North America at the Venetian Conference & Expo Center in Las Vegas, taking place September 11 to 14, 2023.

Google announced it will sell application programming interfaces (API) datasets for the solar industry, empowering business operations with large, interactable data for understanding rooftop solar potential.

The Solar API contains key building, rooftop, shading, and panel configuration data covering over 320 million buildings in 40 countries, with the goal of helping accelerate the transition to clean, renewable, solar energy. The company said it expects to drive up to $100 million in revenues from sales of its API in the first year alone.

“By using the Solar API, solar businesses can improve the customer experience for interested property owners, create reliable project proposals without requiring an on-site visit, and expedite the overall installation process,” said Google.

Google is known in the solar industry for its Project Sunroof, a free application that helps homeowners understand their estimated bill savings potential for installing rooftop solar. The new Solar API builds on years of collaboration with industry leaders to develop datasets that fit their business needs.

The Solar API includes 3D dataset access for individual building data as well as for aggregated data for all buildings in a particular city or county.

Included in the Solar API is a Buildings Insights endpoint, which provides details of a building’s location, dimensions, and solar potential. It contains information like the size and slope of the roof and the modeled energy production of a rooftop array.

The API also contains a Data Layers endpoint, which produces granular details on raw solar information for the area surrounding a building. Data layers include shading and obstructions and the roof layout to assist detailed system placement and layout. The data can be used to create custom solar proposals and by software-as-a-service developers to automate the design of more efficient arrays.

A pilot project user and Solar API customer Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) used the API to create Suncle, an online rooftop solar energy simulation.

“By inputting an address, homeowners can locate their residence on the map, and adjust their electricity bill and solar installation size as they wish. They can find out installation costs, local subsidies available, cost savings, break even point, and how much impact their solar installation could have on reducing CO2, all in a few seconds. To get these figures without Suncle, they would need to have installers visit their house,” says Masami Jenkins, director, environment & social business design lab, TEPCO.

More information can be found on Google’s Solar API webpage and the related documentation page. A demo of the product can be found here.

Leeward Renewable Energy (LRE), a Texas-based renewable energy developer and independent power producer, and Nextracker, a California-based utility-scale solar tracker specialist, signed a volume commitment agreement (VCA) for 3 GW of Nextracker’s NX Horizon smart solar tracking systems. The trackers will serve LRE solar projects under development and construction through 2027.

The agreement demonstrates the shared commitment by both companies to use domestically sourced materials as well as to create jobs in the renewable energy industry. Nextracker reports that much of the steel and electronics used in the supply of its systems are manufactured in factories the company commissioned over the past two years. For example, the company recently commissioned a manufacturing facility in Memphis, Tennessee where MSS Steel Tubes USA will manufacture low-carbon steel components for Nextracker. The tracker provider also manufactures domestic steel in Pennsylvania and Texas, all of which will be help support the fulfilment of LRE’s 3 GW order.

LRE owns and operates a portfolio of 25 wind, solar and energy storage facilities across the United States, totaling approximately 2.7 GW of generating capacity. The company reports that it has another 1.9 GW contracted and 20 GW under development and construction across 100 projects.

“We are pleased to expand our long-standing partnership with Nextracker, whose technology will enhance energy production at our facilities,” said Jason Allen, chief executive officer at LRE. “Nextracker is a domestic supplier with a strong track record of delivering systems on time, and our agreement allows LRE to significantly de-risk our supply chain and uphold our commitment to providing our customers with reliable energy to meet their needs and sustainability goals.”

Nextracker has delivered more than 75 GW of its NX Horizon smart solar tracking system. By adding the TrueCapture smart control systems Nextracker reports that energy production has been found to increase up to 6%. Further advantages include the ability to handle varied site terrain and changing weather conditions, which Nextracker reports is the result of its independent-row architecture and optimization in response to data collected from thousands of sensors across its built-in wireless network.

This is the second VCA agreement between LRE and Nextracker, further extending their strategic partnership.

Solid-state lithium-ion batteries based on foil-based negative electrodes  Georgia Institute of Technology researchers used aluminum foil-based negative electrodes with engineered microstructures in an all-solid-state lithium-ion cell configuration. They have reported hundreds of stable cycles with practically relevant areal capacities at high current densities.

2 GW Meyer Burger solar cell factory in Colorado, hints of more coming  The Swiss-German solar machine and module manufacturer has announced it will redirect solar cell manufacturing machines planned for Germany to Colorado in order to get the factory up by the end of 2024, which would make all of their Arizona solar modules qualify for the IRA”s “domestic content”.

Interfaith group uses moral suasion to advance solar power for Philadelphia  A Philadelphia interfaith group seeks to persuade the utility serving the region to contract for more solar and wind power. Pennsylvania’s renewable generation ranks 45th out of 50 states, said the group’s executive director.

How will the latest change to net metering impact solar adoption in California?  With the changes to net metering incentives introduced in April, homeowners and installers alike are faced with the unknown. Amir Cohen, general manager, SolarEdge Technologies, discusses what installers need to do now to help their businesses and customers thrive in the California solar industry’s ‘new normal’.

Solar contractor tool helps quote roofing and solar in one  SumoQuote partnered with EagleView to expand its roofing tool to also offer quotes on new solar installations.

Canadian company SumoQuote launched its solar quoting system featuring EagleView TrueDesign as the premium design partner. SumoQuote Solar is a software tool that allows contractors to quote roofing and solar in one place.

SumoQuote Solar, an add-on to the company’s roofing tool that is available through a subscription, enables roofing contractors to offer solar to any roofing quote. Often homeowner’s looking to install solar need to first replace their roof, so this all-in-one tool can be used for both quotes.

EagleView, a specialist in geospatial technology, has a geospatial data and imagery library that the company reports encompasses 94% of the U.S. population. EagleView TrueDesign makes use of the imagery data to help installers create a sales-ready design with accurate PVWatts-backed production forecasts. The platform creates a report for customers, empowering sales representatives to move projects forward. Once the sale is closed, the installer can use the one-button planning process and to generate a CAD design after a few hours of processing. “This is only possible through EagleView’s level of granularity,” Peter Cleveland, Eagleview’s VP of solar sales told pv magazine USA. 

TrueDesign is intended to save installers a lot of time and resources, as a truck roll is no longer necessary to bring a site surveyor to the home. It also minimizes risks for installers who have employees climbing ladders for manual pen-and-paper site surveys on rooftops, as well. Interior structures must still be manually observed, but the shortened site survey time is significant, according to EagleView.

SumoQuote Solar can be added to any paid subscription for an additional $150/month which includes 10 free quotes. Roofing installers who already use SumoQuote will get access to preferred report pricing when they use the EagleView add on.

SumoQuote will host a live web class on why and how to add solar to a roofing business. Register here for “Double Your Revenue: The Roofers Guide to Solar” taking place on Thursday, August 3 at 11 a.m. MST.

Tesla announced it has added a new Charge on Solar feature to its Powerwall app, enabling automatic charging of vehicles only on battery-stored solar generation. Using the app, Tesla drivers can ensure their vehicle is fully powered by local, emissions-free electricity. 

Following a few simple prompts, users can set charge limits and locations, charging the battery to a predefined level while relying only on electricity produced by the homeowner’s rooftop solar array. The app will enable the vehicle to adjust charge power approximately every 10 seconds to match the excess solar power and power consumption elsewhere in the home. Tesla vehicle may delay the start of  

The battery will delay charging until there is at least 1.2 kW of stable excess solar to maximize efficiency and lifetime of the charging equipment. This helps account for variability in solar power and home loads. 

The Charge on Solar feature is compatible with existing Powerwall battery charge schedules including: 

• Storm Watch
  Powerwall will prioritize charging from any source to prepare for an outage during severe weather events before allocating any excess solar power for vehicle charging. 
• Backup Reserve
  If the Powerwall’s stored energy is below the backup reserve, it will prioritize charging to the set backup reserve percentage before allocating any excess solar power for vehicle charging. 
• Self-Powered
  Powerwall will allow the Tesla vehicle to charge on excess solar until the set charge limit, while covering changes in home loads and solar production until the vehicle adjusts its charging power. Once the vehicle has met its charging limit, the Powerwall will charge on excess solar as usual. This is the recommended mode to maximize Charge on Solar operation with the vehicle.
• Time-Based Control
  The battery stores energy when energy costs are low and may sell that low-cost energy back to the grid when energy costs are higher, instead of using the excess solar energy for Charge on Solar. This also enables participation in virtual power plant or utility program events. In most cases, the vehicle will pause charging during peak to prioritize total savings or charge the Powerwall from excess solar, while charging your vehicle during off-peak from the grid.
• Go Off-Grid
  When the battery is off-grid, the Tesla vehicle will continue to charge on excess solar unless Powerwall prioritizes saving energy for home use during the outage.

Charge on Solar is currently only available to customers who own a Powerwall and a Tesla vehicle in the U.S. and Canada.

Telecommunications company Ericsson turned a new page in its sustainability book after debuting the first phase of a telecom tower microgrid, which uses a 2.4 kW solar array plus 14.4 kWh battery storage at a 5G center in Plano, Texas.

An Ericsson spokeswoman told pv magazine USA that the company is using six bifacial 400 W solar panels assembled with three company-supplied lithium-ion battery packs on a corporate facility rooftop. Using ample eight to nine hours of north Texas sunlight, the site is capable of operating off-grid for up to 24 hours, she said.

The 5G site includes an ultra-lightweight mid-band Massive MIMO AIR 6419, RAN Processor 6651, which transmit high-speed wireless phone services, along with an enclosure which comprises the company’s Solar shelf 6670 paired with lithium-ion Batteries 6612, and energy management controller 6610 for hybrid energy operation.

“Ericsson’s smart site solutions for hybrid energy sources are designed to help operators control costs and increase profitability – especially in rural or remote areas or private networks, where traffic volumes are lower and power consumption needs to be especially efficient,” said Ed Gubbins, principal analyst at Global Data. “Using a variety of tools to increase energy efficiency and sustainability – including solar power, lithium-ion batteries, and advanced software features – can be helpful for improving operator profitability.”

Additional features of the telecom microgrid include load shifting, peak shaving, and demand response, which enables the site to effectively utilize batteries when electricity rates are high and recharge the batteries when electricity rates are lower. This power dynamic strategy allows for multiple daily cycles, ensuring optimal cost efficiency by taking advantage of the most favorable electricity prices.

The second phase of the Plano, Texas 5G project will involve deploying additional clean energy resources, such as hydrogen-based generators, as an alternative to on-site diesel generators. It will also explore interoperability with power grid vendors, using other local energy generation and consumption to sell back to the grid with net metering.

Network operators under the Ericsson Network Manager framework can utilize the Plano site’s policy-based Battery Saver, where the users can switch off specified radio frequencies to reduce daily energy consumption and meanwhile increasing network resiliency.

The Plano telecom microgrid has the potential to serve as a demonstration for trial radio hardware and software solutions that improve energy efficiency in conjunction with smart-site solutions. The project could be used by utility companies in areas such as grid frequency, voltage regulation, and demand response energy trading.

Ericsson debuted the Texas microgrid with a three-minute video clip overview of the facility:

In 2022, Ericsson’s Net Zero report titled “Breaking the Energy Curve” detailed plans for the expansion of distributed energy solutions such as solar and energy storage systems to offset energy costs and reduce operating expenses of high density networking operations such as in Plano, Texas.  The multinational company has set a goal of its operations becoming net zero by 2040, with the first step of reducing 50% of emissions across its network upgrading to 5G by 2030. The company’s research shows global mobile networks use 0.6% of global electricity usage.

Each year solar technical advisory and inspection servicer Heliovolta releases a report on solar performance and safety called the SolarGrade PV Health Report.

The report assesses PV health using over 60,000 data points, ranging from projects from 100 kW to 350 MW in size. About 73% of the assessed projects in this year’s report are located on commercial rooftops, 25% are ground-mounted, and 2% are solar carports. All projects are located in the United States.

Heliovolta found some important problem areas for the performance and safety of these solar assets. A staggering 62% of inspected projects were identified to have critical or major issues. Of this share of projects with critical risks, 91% of the major issues were found to be in DC distribution components.

“Issues can be fixed before they become hazardous. Periodic inspections and proactive O&M — especially in the DC distribution section of PV systems — are critical to safe and reliable operations,” said the report.

Heliovolta noted that inverters often appear to be the cause of PV system problems due to the fact they are typically the primary device of energy yield data and error messages. However, on-the-ground data reveals that inverters are rarely the root cause of downtime. In most cases, inverters trip because they detect underlying issues located within the DC Distribution section, said the report.

The report shared that 74% of issues were in the DC distribution section, 9% in racking, 7% in modules, and 7% in inverters.

Within this critical DC distribution system failure are a few specific components driving most of the problems. Over 33% of failures in this system were due to field-made PV connectors. Wire management issues were the second cause of failures and safety issues, about 26% of reported problems. Other problems with conduits, raceways, improper installation, combiner boxes, grounding, and wire terminations were listed as significant risks.

(Read: “Solar assets are underperforming expectations by 8%, what is the root cause?”)

“The most frequently observed issues are related to field-made connectors and wire management. Installer error is typically the root cause for these categories of issue — not defective equipment,” said Heliovolta.

The company said that 79% of all field-made connector issues are caused by improper installation or cross-mating of incompatible parts. Identifying and remediating compromised field-made connectors is critical to safety as they can trigger PV system fires by overheating and by creating arc and ground fault conditions. Heliovolta offers a safety guide to solar connectors.

Interestingly, the report found that 37% of all inverter issues were sourced from one inverter provider. This brand was kept anonymous by Heliovolta in the report.

As for solar module performance, about 30% of problems were related to microcracking. These small cracks restrict the flow of current, reducing energy yield and potentially creating hotspots over time. The report recommends using electroluminescent (EL) imagining tests to detect microcracking.

Heliovolta operates a cloud-based software platform called SolarGrade to help manage the performance and safety inspection process. The company’s report recommended five best practices to ensure a more reliable, productive, and safe solar facility:

1) Require robust installer training

DC distribution issues related to connectors and wire management are the most common problems at project sites. With better training protocols, the vast majority of these issues could be avoided.

2) Conduct QA/WC inspections at commissioning

Assessing EPC workmanship through QA/QC inspections early in a project’s lifecycle helps ensure that latent issues are corrected before catastrophic failures occur.

3) Require inspections during operations and maintenance visits twice a year

Periodically walking project sites to assess PV system health ensures that signs of latent component failure and accelerated degradation are identified early.

4) Standardize inspection processes

Make sure inspectors know what to look for in PV system health assessments by providing standardized, accessible, and easy-to-use guidelines. The SolarGrade platform comes with pre-written templates and issue descriptions.

5) Track issue resolution

Do not allow issues to get lost in the shuffle of PDF reports, spreadsheets, and clunky manual checklists. The SolarGrade platform allows field technicians to quickly find problems on the ground, and asset managers can dynamically track issue resolution in the cloud.

From pv magazine global

Israel-based inverter manufacturer SolarEdge has partnered with Germany’s Vaillant and South Korea’s Samsung to integrate heat pumps with residential PV systems.

“This development will provide end-users with the ability to power the heat pump with excess PV, all controlled from a single point via the mySolarEdge app,” a company spokesperson told pv magazine.

Users will also be able to control home temperatures via the app. It will reportedly allow homeowners to optimize their energy consumption using excess PV or shifting consumption in accordance with optimal energy rates.

SolarEdge estimates yearly savings of around $108 by optimizing the consumption of the heat pump at alternative times, it said in a statement.

“Smart homes have mainly been about convenience and interconnectivity, but the next step is building a comprehensive and integrated ecosystem,” said Alfred Karlstetter, general manager of SolarEdge Europe. “By merging home devices with the value of smart solar energy through this integration with Vaillant, we are leading the way in making the power of smart solar energy more accessible, intuitive, and convenient for more people.”

The integration is expected to become available in the second half of this year.

SolarEdge, a major provider of solar inverters and battery energy storage, introduced a new software platform for the management of solar-attached EV charging facilities for the commercial and industrial segment.

The software manages and optimizes EV charging for projects that require dynamic load management and have numerous EVs on site. Apartment buildings, workplaces, and public charging locations are among some of the applications the software is designed to serve.

SolarEdge said its charging manager is built on AI-based predictive algorithms that incorporate real-time data and consider solar production, electricity price fluctuations, and tiered charging schedules. It integrates with SolarEdge’s energy management system, orchestrating interactions between the facility’s solar generation, battery energy storage, and large-scale EV charging, taking into account local infrastructure and grid conditions and limitations.

“As more companies are taking active measures to electrify their car fleets, combining solar PV and EV charging is a cost-effective and sustainable way to manage these fleets,” said Zvi Lando, chief executive officer, SolarEdge Technologies.

Wevo Energy, a startup focused on EV charging management software, developed the platform. SolarEdge is an investor in the company. 

“Wevo’s solution is already deployed at thousands of parking spaces globally. The combination of Wevo’s software with SolarEdge’s leading PV solution and market presence will enable the accelerated deployment of load-balanced EV charging infrastructure,” said Teddy Flatau, chief executive officer, Wevo Energy. 

The new commercial and industrial will initially launch in Germany and the UK, with plans for other major markets to follow quickly, said SolarEdge. The company will display the new technology at Intersolar Europe, June 13 and 14, booth B4, 110.

With the utility-scale solar market experiencing a multi-gigawatt surge of development activity across America’s heartland states, insurers are now requiring solar developers to demonstrate mitigation strategies and protocols to address severe hail and extreme weather in new solar states from the Midwest through the Great Plains, and elsewhere.

A recent pv magazine USA webinar session revealed that hail risk mitigation is a common problem in the “Hail Alley,” a broad region encompassing around six states from the Dakotas to Texas, which often experience five or more days each year of catastrophic hail. Climate change has created patterns of irregularity as extreme weather increasingly crops up in regions bordering hail-prone regions.

Hail events have historically posed a considerable risk for utility solar, with weather instances creating up to $100 million in module damage at large projects located in states like Texas, where hail stones the size of baseballs can pummel skyward facing modules.

Indji Systems, a Los Angeles-based meteorological software, has just launched the Indji Watch, a hail detection software-as-a-service platform specifically for solar developers which allows end users to see and trace hail events using a predictive, real-time data framework.

The software system allows solar and utility siting stakeholders to operations and maintenance professionals to implement effective defensive measures and safeguard their investments for the long haul.

Indji Watch automatically detects early threats and delivers notifications through its dashboard. With updates on potential hail threats delivered up to the time of storm impacts, the weather watch allows companies to proactively prepare for significant events, fostering collaboration and coordinated decision-making across the enterprise. By prioritizing “early awareness,” Indji Systems can help mitigate risk by protecting solar sites.

The Indji Watch identifies storm paths and their proximity to solar asset footprints as threats become imminent, enabling customers to take defensive measures. The warning allows solar O&M and onsite operators time to “stow,” a term used to angle the solar panels away from oncoming hailstorms to lessen the direct impact and potential damage to the crystalline panels.

The system provides weather alerts within one hour of impact. Indji Watch’s customizable thresholds also allow for alerts tailored to the specific panel technology deployed at each site.

“This new release further solidifies our position as the go-to solution for effective risk mitigation, and demonstrates our commitment to delivering unparalleled value to our customers,” said Adam Hender, chief executive officer of Indji Systems.

Founded in 2004, Indji Systems is an independent software company with operations in California and Australia. The company has designed the Indji Watch and GeoSamba mapping software which helps asset owners make real-time decisions about power and infrastructure assets.

The company received its first patent for Indji Watch in October 2018 for environmental threat monitoring and alert software. This covered the company’s cloud-based service with dynamic modeling of assets and hazards from sensor networks, the algorithms for threat relationships between weather pattern and end users, and real-time monitoring alerts.

The company’s weather tracking dashboard is used by utilities Xcel Energy, Sacramento Municipal Utility District, and Southern California Edison, while the Indji Watch has been also tested at a Longroad Energy utility solar site, according to its website.

The proliferation of community solar in 23 U.S. states, with requests for proposals for hundreds of MW of projects, has required a systematic approach to ordering modules and battery storage systems. With state backlogs for projects colocated on small acreages with 5 MW on average of power capacity, a 21-year old solar developer has launched an online marketplace that provides real-time and forward-looking pricing metrics that factors in the dynamics of a long-term power asset.  

Anza Renewables, a marketplace for small-scale utility, community solar and distributed generation projects including storage,was spun out of Borrego, with the intention of bringing to the industry the proprietary optimization process that was first used internally by Borrego engineering and procurement teams for its own  development projects. Earlier this month Anza announced its separation from Borrego and a fund raise from Energy Capital Partners’ (ECP) Energy Transition Opportunities Fund, Angeleno Group, and other investors. 

Anza sees itself as a Kayak.com-type of resource for developers looking to book equipment and save capital in real-time based on market pricing curves and commodity sways, Mike Hall, co-founder and chief executive officer of Anza RE, told pv magazine USA. 

Currently developers only have the tools to compare modules based on price, but they want to compare by project value, Hall said. Anza’s marketplace and search engine will compare these factors to provide value-added metrics, he added.  

Before Anza, project developers would typically participate in a request for proposal (RFP) and book module orders for panels in a multi-hundred MW portfolio, Hall said. At that point, the buyer would lock-in a price that could be several weeks out of date, using a conventional sales approach where phone calls and weeks pass before a procurement is made, he said. 

The distributed generation market’s maturity starting in 2015-16 created a topsy-turvy market with “hundreds of IPP buyers” participating in an out-dated system without forward-pricing mechanisms or showing long-term value in projects that were being developed in new states for that type of asset class, he said.  

On the supply side, more than 40 Tier I module suppliers had ballooned in the U.S., making it difficult to connect buyers and sellers for projects, Hall recalls. Many Asian vendors selling into the U.S. DG market had a difficult time as well connecting with buyers, he added.  

And using a conventional sales route, with consultants from a myriad of developers calling the same resale party such as Greentech Renewables, independent power producers (IPPs) often lost out on net present value, Hall said.

Now more than 150 companies such as Renewable Properties currently use Anza’s one-stop solar and storage marketplace, supporting rapid and optimal purchasing decisions. 

The company’s proprietary technology engine behind a digital platform is a cost and performance modeling software that identifies the most optimized components based on customer-provided project details. 

To date, Anza has transacted over 2 GW worth of solar modules on its software platform which connects buyers and vendors, and also provides periodic market reports showing pricing metrics, Hall said. 

Anza’s marketplace sells primarily solar modules and battery systems for storage projects, as well as some interconnected inverter components primarily for storage, Hall said.  

Further clarity from the federal Inflation Reduction Act with respect to the onshoring of U.S. solar and storage components could spur the company to feature more integral components to the DG system in years to come, he said. But for now the company is primarily focused on solar modules and DG battery systems for active procurement, Hall said.

Project developers can start to see cost savings using Anza following their first order, while real value is seen by the time a project enters construction. “The Anza platform is good at providing 6 quarters of forward pricing metrics, while the system is constantly sending project updates for pricing metrics,” Hall said, comparing the system to travel marketplace Kayak.com, where users receive recommendations for booking travel in real-time or waiting a matter of weeks or a month.  

In addition to pricing metrics, Anza’s system is also showing users module improvements from vendors in real-time as well to illustrate not just cost savings, but project improvements on the technical side as well, Hall said.  

As a software provider and electronic vendor, Anza generates revenue by receiving a “very small percentage of each transaction users maker,” Hall said about the procurement platform. Potential buyers can post project size, location and various data points onto the the platform for free and Anza generates sales from connecting the buyer with active vendors. 

Anza’s marketplace was devised after the Covid-19 pandemic,and following the 2021 separation of Borrego into a development business, operations and maintenance business, Hall and the developer’s founders saw a niche opportunity on the procurement side of the business to fill in an out-dated business model with a real-time, online marketplace.  

Mike Hall and brother Aaron Hall formed Borrego in 2002. And in July 2022, the San Diego-based developer, EPC and O&M provider of large-scale solar and  storage projects completed a corporate spin-off and sale of its development business to Energy Capital Partners (ECP). The new development company was subsequently renamed New Leaf Energy and continued to be operated by ECP. Borrego continued to be run by Hall as an O&M provider with about 2.5 GW of projects under management.

Anza is exhibiting at Booth #3914 at the CleanPower Conference & Exhibition 2023, a national power and renewable energy industry conference taking place from May 23 to 25 at the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.

The intermittency of renewable energy created the use of distributed energy tools such as energy storage and virtual power plants. But with new technologies at the grid and consumer level, utilities and regional transmission operators have turned to grid controls and maintenance software to orchestrate, aggregate and monitor the dispatch of clean power when the sun stops shining and the wind stops blowing.

Bidgely, a California-based energy data software start-up company, released the 8760 Energy Model, a data set and report that provides utilities and industry stakeholders with behind-the-meter energy data tracked at the hourly level throughout the year.

The data tool provides a new approach to grid planning, EV charging analytics, non-wire alternatives and load forecasting that aggregates the data across a full year, 24 hours per day.

With insight on how the daily load curve of each utility customer contributes to the grid, utilities have the ability to identify trends, predict future grid patterns, encourage grid-stabilizing customer behaviors and understand the load impact on grid assets, such as distribution transformers, feeders and substations, the company says.

To download the full Bidgely 8760 report click here.

“Energy consumption is constantly changing. As a result, utilities must develop agile responses to evolving pressures on the grid,” said Abhay Gupta, chief executive officer of Bidgely. “Our 8760 insights let utilities see their grids in high definition across time. They can use this insight to develop new rates, products, services and infrastructure investments that deliver greater value on both sides of the meter.”

With 8760, energy consumption data patterns are broken down by the hour and illustrated across 12 different appliance types, which includes EV charging and residential solar systems, across different geographic areas and utility rate plans. This analysis enables utilities to identify trends and plan strategically for grid management, especially based on daily challenges from the intermittency of renewables, EVs and extreme weather events that can affect predictability on the grid level.

In 2022, the system pulled data from the record-setting heatwave in the Pacific Northwest, when the region saw sustained daily temperatures of 100 degrees for consecutive days. The data was provided to the regional utilities to allow for future grid planning and resiliency measures as much of the U.S. sees rises in temperature and extreme weather due to climate change.

Using Bidgely’s data system, utilities can implement or track non-wire alternatives for managing the grid and target customers with load-shifting programs such as virtual power plants and demand response.

At the consumer level, 8760’s load curves analyzed will show grid asset resources with spare capacity and those regions near capacity. The data shows when a customer is running a pool pump and for how long the appliance will run, revealing a targeted list of utility customers who run the same appliance at peak times. This enables the utility to offer the customers load-shifting programs and incentives for lowering the usage of such home appliances as seen in the accompanying Bidgely screenshot.

For consumers running the same appliance, the 8760 data can make recommendations for the utility’s customer to change their Time-of-Use (TOU) rate plan, run the appliance during off-peak hours, buy an energy efficient appliance, or add a residential solar array for additional energy savings.

Bidgely’s UtilityAI and other solutions are used by more than 30 North American electric and gas utility companies and 29 million households that enable “future ready” means for grid flexibility. The company is partnered with digital meter provider Itron as well as EnergyHub and Salesforce for its artificial intelligence-functions and cloud-based accounting systems used in UtilityAI systems.

Founded in 2011, the company is based in Los Altos, California and has raised $82.7 million in growth equity from Constellation, Khosla Ventures, Moore Strategic Ventures, Future Energy Ventures, Innogy and Accurant International.

pv magazine USA recaps the top earnings reports and conference calls for public companies that supply solar modules, silicon wafer materials, inverters, hardware and energy storage systems to the North American renewable energy market, as well as integrated residential solar installation companies and rooftop solar finance providers. This report tracks quarterly and annual volumes of orders, wafer material shipments and customer allocations.

On Friday, U.S. solar stocks traded up between 12% and 25% following the release of guidance from the U.S. Treasury on domestic content as it relates to the sourcing of American-made solar modules, hardware components under the federal Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Nextracker, an integrated tracking hardware and software supplier, was up 12.7%, with its stock trading at $40.03 per share, its highest trading performance since becoming a public company on February 8, 2023.

Tigo Energy

Tigo Energy, a distributor of inverters, optimizers and energy storage systems, reported $50.1 million in Q1 2023 revenue, up 406% from $9.9 million generated in Q1 2022, while the company also had its first successful profitable quarter, with $6.9 million net income.

“Looking ahead, our focus remains on providing an exceptional customer experience, including through our technology’s open architecture, easy installation, and powerful software,” said Zvi Alon, chief executive officer of Tigo Energy “We anticipate that we will close our previously announced merger transaction with Roth CH IV later this month and believe that this transformation will propel us into a successful second half of the year.”

The company provided Q2 2023 guidance with revenue expected of $70 million to $74 million.

In December 2022, Tigo announced a merger with special purpose acquisition company Roth CH IV, a SPAC funded by Roth Capital Partners and Craig-Hallum Capital Group, with $117 million of gross proceeds. Upon completion later this month, Tigo Energy will trade on the Nasdaq exchange under ticker ‘TYGO.’

Nextracker

Nextracker, a Fremont, Calif.-based solar tracking hardware and software solutions provider, reported $518.4 million in its fiscal Q4 2023 revenue and net income of $27.5 million for the quarter, its first quarter as a public company.

The company also reported full year revenue of $1.9 billion and net income of $121.3 million for FY 2023. Over the last year the hardware company saw a 90% increase to its backlog, growing to $2.6 billion, while the company executed multiple project portfolio contracts with owners and developers.

In 2023, Nextracker shipped 17 GW of hardware systems.

During its Q1 2023 earnings call, management said for customers that require domestic content, the company can accept orders for 70% to 80% of domestic content this year and in 2024 anticipated accepting orders for up to 90% domestic content.

“Our ability to grow revenue by 30% and earnings by over 120% for fiscal 2023, while posting our fifth consecutive year of profitability, reflects our leadership position in solar markets around the world, a global supply chain footprint supporting those operations, as well as solid execution across the business,” said Dan Shugar, chief executive officer of Nextracker.

The company provided fiscal year 2024 guidance with revenue expected of $2.1 billion to $2.3 billion, and net income in the range of $175 million to $205 million.

FTC Solar

FTC Solar, an Austin, Texas-based solar tracking hardware provider, reported $40.9 million in Q1 2023 revenue, a slight beat over the market consensus of $39 million, though down 17.5% year-over-year from $49.6 million of Q1 2022 revenue.

In Q1 2023, the company attributed strong bookings of $235 million to the United States’ continued enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), which has banned since December 2021 the imports of various solar components from global suppliers from the Uyghur region of China that had seen forced labor violations.

“Results for Q1 came in at the high-end of our target ranges on all metrics,” said Sean Hunkler, president and chief executive officer of FTC Solar. “Our strategy is working, the multiple initiatives we’ve executed on over the past year are improving our operating performance. For example, our improved cost structure has enabled us to post our first positive gross margin since our IPO, one that is 14-points higher today than it was in the fourth quarter of 2021 when we had two and a half times the revenue, and one that is 57 points higher than just two quarters ago.”

The company provided Q2 2023 guidance of $42.5 million to $52.5 million revenue and continues to forecast egative earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of negative $3.5 million to $7 million as the company sees continual growth ahead since becoming a public company in April 2021.

Upcoming earnings:

• FREYR Battery reports Q1 2023 earnings on May 15, with a conference call scheduled for 8:30 a.m. ET;
• Canadian Solar reports Q1 2023 earnings on May 18, with a conference call scheduled for 8:30 a.m. ET; access to the call is available by calling 877-704-4453.

Multiple parties have suggested that the residential solar market would slow down in 2023 after having a very strong 2022. One quarter into 2023, the slowdown is evident, but it is showing in a more complex manner than most projected, with California NEM 2.0 applications beating industry expectations while many other states in the West and South are performing less well due to the effects of interest rates.

Higher rates have led to third party-financing ownership increasing in multiple state markets, according to Ohm Analytics, with Nevada and Arizona seeing increases from 8% and 12% in late 2022 to 12% and 19%, respectively, in March 2023. Sunrun also noted the strong performance of its subscription-based Shift product in the California post-NEM 2.0 landscape in its recent earnings call, suggesting that California could see a bigger rise in third-party ownership.

Several months ago, Ohm Analytics told pv magazine USA that they believed 2023 would experience slower growth. Ohm based this prediction on increasing interest rates, as well as a possible lull in California after NEM 3.0 rolled out in mid-April. However, Ohm also believed there would be regional differences due to variations in electricity pricing, incentives and installation costs, all of which influence return on investment.

During a recent conversation with pv magazine USA, reflecting back on the year so far, Ohm Analytics’ Joseph Wyer and Rohan Humphrey said that much of what’s happening in the residential solar sales market in Q1 2023 was foreshadowed in its “Q4 2022 DG Solar and Storage Market Report.”

Wyer explained,

“What we’re seeing in the data is divergent regional growth with a lot of the southern Sunbelt and Mountain States seeing slower demand on the year, initially because of the challenges around financing and interest rates, but then also some installers losing access to M1 payments. This has put financial pressures on installers, particularly in some of the southern states.”

M1 refers to the first solar project milestone payments, where traditionally a portion of the payment was paid out to the installer when the contract was signed, then another is paid after permit submission, installation, and other stages, Wyer said.

It was suggested that larger companies were reallocating resources toward solar markets with higher electricity rates or greater incentives. Humphrey said higher interest rates could result in monthly loan payments approaching or exceeding current electricity bills.

Humphrey also noted that as with all businesses, specifically in the high capital expenditure construction industry, cashflow is important to the residential solar market. Contractors that were using loan products and getting an upfront cash injection once they signed project contracts were using cashflow to finance salaries, and general business expenses. With these advance payments slowing down, cash is tighter for installers.

Sunrun and Sunnova also gain additional financial benefits from the Inflation Reduction Act and general solar finance that regular homeowners do not. As commercial entities, these groups can gain an additional 10% tax credit if they use domestic content or install in energy communities. Moreover, they are allowed to depreciate assets associated with solar projects.

One thing that surprised many was the strength of the solar market in California leading up to the end of Net Metering 2.0 on April 14, 2023. Ohm says that the number of people that signed up for solar prior to the April date are enough to build large books of business and support solar installation teams for months.

Ohm is releasing its updated market forecast and insights to customers over the next few weeks in its “Q1 2022 DG Solar and Storage Market Report.”

Gridscape Solutions, a Fremont, Calif.-based microgrid and EV charging station developer, was selected by community choice aggregator East Bay Community Energy to deploy 30 microgrids with 3.1 MW of solar and 6.2 MWh of battery systems in four Bay Area, California cities.

The microgrid portfolio will provide energy resilience during power outage events in northern California and reduce electric bills to EBCE’s customers as part of its Resilient Municipal Critical Facilities program. The municipal platform is designed to bundle distributed community energy projects into a larger portfolio.

Vipul Gore, founder and chief executive officer of Gridscape, said the ECBE microgrid portfolio will take about 18 months to complete, with main factors effecting timing including permitting, interconnection delays, and supply chain constraints.

The four-city portfolio represents the largest microgrid project deployment under a single third-party financed power purchase agreement, the company said.  To support critical service power in Hayward and Fremont, Calif., the program received a $2 million federal grant to fund the microgrid portfolio.

Gridscape’s microgrid systems are deployed using the company’s EnergyScope Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS) controller, which allows the site owner to directly control the distribution of battery power discharge on daily intervals.  The control system provides real-time system updates and monitors fault detection, alarm monitoring, performance management and remote diagnostics.

The company’s lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery system is contained in an IP55-rated hardware shell, designed to protect against dust that could impede normal operations, and fully protect from water jet streams by a nozzle source. Additional features include fire suppression, off-gassing, a security camera and energy meters to measure grid power and critical load components.

To date, the company’s microgrid projects and EV charging systems have been deployed for various California municipalities, their fire departments, universities and tribal authorities such as the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians.

In June 2022, Gridscape partnered with the San Pasqual Band to deploy a community solar-plus-storage microgrid for the tribal group’s administrative building, schools, police station and fire department facilities in Valley Center, Calif.  The microgrid is partially funded by a Department of Energy grant.

The tribal energy system consists of a 156.8 kW solar carport array paired with an existing 24 kW solar array on the tribe’s schools, plus 480 kWh battery systems projected to save $78,286 in annual energy costs. Additional equipment added to the microgrid includes six EV charging stations and a 150 kW liquid propane fueled generator, according to Gridscape.

The company’s EV charging solutions involve Level 2 and DC fast charging stations in which stations are interconnected with onsite solar and storage systems. In one case study, Gridscape deployed 110 DC fast charging ports into a microgrid system with 9.13 MW of solar and 14.3 MWh of battery resources.

East Bay Community Energy (EBCE) is a California nonprofit agency that procures renewable energy via utility Pacific Gas and Electric’s (PG&E) lines as a “community choice energy service.” In May 2021, ECBE was awarded a $300,000 grant by the Environmental Protection Agency to develop an inventory of brownfield sites throughout its service area that could be a good fit for redevelopment as EV charging hubs for light, medium, and heavy-duty electric vehicles.

Gridscape was formed in 2013 as a solar, battery and EV charging systems integrator for municipal, education facilities, retail and tribal authorities.

Over the last decade the U.S. has spent over $120 billion on 100 GW of new generation capacity with the primary purpose of providing resource adequacy.

A new study by consulting firm The Brattle Group explores the cost and critical resource adequacy needs from virtual power plants (VPPs) as it relates to net savings on the U.S. utility grid.

VPPs are networks of distributed energy resource (DER) portfolios, which can include rooftop solar, smart thermostats, smart water heaters, electric vehicles, and distributed batteries. The VPP network is actively controlled by utilities and energy service providers to benefit consumers, the power system, and the environment.

The Brattle report, titled Real Reliability: The Value of Virtual Power, models the value and performance of a VPP network versus conventional resource adequacy options. The consulting group compares the net cost of providing 400 MW of resource adequacy from three resource types: a natural gas peaker, a grid-interconnected battery system, and a VPP composed of residential demand flexibility technologies.

The 400 MW resource adequacy study involved a utility with 1.7 million residential customers. That utility had 5.7 GW of gross peak demand, 3.6 GW of net peak demand of wind and solar resources, while its generation forecast was to generate 50% renewable energy by 2030, representing a growing trend toward decarbonized power supply. The sample utility is conservatively selected to represent challenging performance requirements for a VPP, such as a need for resource adequacy performance during many hours in both summer and winter.

The chart above shows the annual cost savings between the sample VPP network and systems comprised of just gas-powered and battery systems.

The study also identifies key near-term activities for enabling the deployment of VPPs, which currently are adopted well below their market potential.

“With the massive growth in consumer adoption of clean, flexible energy technologies that is expected over the coming decade, virtual power plants are no longer a virtual reality,” noted Ryan Hledik, a Brattle principal and co-author of the study. “There is real potential to leverage these technologies to improve reliability, enable decarbonization, and reduce costs to consumers. But barriers still need to be overcome.”

Key findings from the Brattle study include:

• Real reliability: A VPP leveraging residential load flexibility technologies could perform as reliably as conventional resources
• Cost savings: The net cost to the utility of providing resource adequacy from a VPP is roughly 40%–60% of the cost of the alternative options; 60 GW of VPP deployment could meet future U.S resource adequacy needs at $15–$35 billion less than the cost of the alternative options over the ensuing decade
• Additional benefits: 60 GW of VPP systems could provide over $20 billion in additional societal benefits – such as those related to emissions and resilience – over ten years

“Google already enables one of the largest VPPs in the U.S. by helping our thermostat users avoid carbon and earn rewards through the Rush Hour Rewards (RHR) program and our recently launched Nest Renew service,” said Parag Chokshi, director of product strategy and operations, Google Nest. “We believe the continued growth and support of VPPs in the residential sector is crucial to continue building towards a decarbonized, reliable grid of the future.”

According to the study, nine states are currently running VPP systems for resource adequacy testing, as well as Puerto Rico. Utilities that are integrating solar with energy storage in VPP networks include Pacific Gas & Electric (30 MW solar-plus-storage), Portland General Electric (4 MW behind-the-meter battery VPP), Green Mountain Power (4,000 batteries with 55 MW capacity) and Hawaiian Electric (80 MW solar-plus-storage system).

The Colorado Legislature has passed HB-1234, which establishes the Streamlined Solar Permitting and Inspection Grant Program and provides nearly $1 million to help local governments with start-up costs associated with adopting permitting and inspection software. The bipartisan bill was sponsored by Dylan Roberts and Perry Will in the Senate, and Matt Soper and Kyle Brown in the House.

“Colorado’s mountain communities are eager to develop solar technology, but all too often, projects are held up in the labor-intensive permitting process, and sometimes even canceled. These grants will help reduce time, costs, and burden for permitting, and keep us in line with our greenhouse gas reduction goals,” according to bill sponsor Dylan Roberts. “House Bill 1234 is a win for both our economy and our environment.”

Last year the Department of Energy (DOE) released a solar guidebook that encourages local governments to adopt SolarAPP+ (Solar Automated Permit Process), a software platform, developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and UL Solutions, that can immediately approve residential permits. According to NREL, projects submitted through the app are 37% less likely to fail final inspections than projects that don’t use the tool. At present, 32 communities across the U.S. are using SolarAPP+, resulting in over 15,000 residential solar permits issued, accounting for 100,000 kW of electricity and 15,000 estimated staff hours saved on reviewing permits.

“We commend the Colorado legislature for advancing expedited permitting on residential solar projects while prioritizing compliance with safety and code standards,” said Ken Boyce, senior director of principal engineering at UL Solutions. “We recognize the value SolarAPP+ brings to governments, the public and the solar industry, and how it will serve as an important enabler of safer and cleaner energy.”

SolarApp+ is already in use in the city of Denver. With HB-1234 in place, communities in Colorado will get financial help with start-up costs of using SolarApp+. Colorado enjoys more than 300 days of sunshine a year, offering vast solar potential. Currently the state has about 2 GW of solar resources installed, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, and is ranked 13^th in the nation for solar. Streamlining the solar permitting and inspection process can help more Coloradans speed up the process of harnessing that sunshine.

“This will empower local officials to automate permitting and inspections, which will reduce staff time and cut costs,” said Mike Kruger, CEO of the Colorado Solar and Storage Association (COSSA). “In turn, this will give homeowners immediate results for their permit applications, and solar and storage companies can hire more staff to support an increase in projects approved.”

Sunnova Energy International in its Q1 2023 earnings report today added 30,100 customers over the recent quarter across 1,376 dealers, a 96.7% year-over-year increase from 15,300 customers added a year ago, bringing its total customer count to 309,300.

The Houston-based distributed energy systems company recorded more than 5,000 of new customers in the commonwealth of Puerto Rico in the recent quarter, representing its second highest market after California, where it added 5,512 new customers.

Revenue increased to $161.7 million in Q1 2023, a 146% increase over the prior year, as a result of an increased number of solar systems put in service and the sale of inventory.

“Our strong growth trajectory can be attributed to our continuous investments in software, service, and multiple channels for growth, which have allowed Sunnova to increase market share and widen its total addressable market,” said William “John” Berger, chief executive officer of Sunnova.

Sunnova has 1.95 GW of solar and 801 MWh of energy storage resources under management, with solar up 41% year-over-year and the storage retention rate at 15.6%, up from 12.5% a year ago.

“Just last week, we announced a conditional commitment with the U.S. Department of Energy Loan Programs Office to expand access to Sunnova’s Energy as a Service offerings, potentially adding to our growth by making our energy services accessible to homeowners who may not have qualified without this commitment,” said Berger.

The company raised its 2023 full year guidance, with customer additions increasing from a range of 115,000 to 125,000 to a range of 125,000 to 135,000.

Sunnova’s common stock traded up more than 12.8% today, to $18.43 per share from $16.34 a day ago, on Q1 2023 earnings strength and increased guidance.

Earlier this week, Sunnova announced a $3 billion conditional loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy Loan Programs Office to support a new consumer loan channel called Project Hestia. If approved, the loan office will backstop the company’s deployment of up to $5.2 billion of collateral projects for the deployment of virtual power plant (VPP) systems. Hestia is designed to increase accessibility to solar and VPP networked solutions for disadvantaged communities who previously may not have been able to finance residential solar projects or energy storage.

Sunnova vice president of capital markets Dan DeSnyder told pv magazine USA that the landmark securitization will take about three years to deploy. The asset-based financing will support new customer solar plus integrated residential solutions installations such as EV charging, smart thermostats and other equipment interconnected to the company’s MySunnova smartphone app, he said.

Electrical standards provider UL Solutions has released a new cybersecurity protocol, UL 2941, which covers distributed energy and inverter-based resources.  Developed with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), UL 2941 provides testable requirements for energy storage and generation technologies on the distribution grid. The new cybersecurity protocol provides a framework for photovoltaic inverters, electric vehicle chargers, wind turbines, fuel cells and other distributed resources operating within a grid interconnection.

The new UL requirement prioritizes cybersecurity standards for power systems that deal with high penetration inverter-based resources, including those interfacing with bulk power systems for periods of instantaneous high wind, solar and hybrid/storage generation.

UL 2941 will also promote cybersecurity measures across all new inverter-based resources (IBR) and distributed energy resource (DER) systems.

“The publication of UL 2941 is a milestone toward securing the distributed generation industry,” said Danish Saleem, senior energy systems cybersecurity engineer, NREL. “Equipment manufacturers, asset owners, regulators and government officials now have an established baseline for strengthening the security of their devices such as network-connected IBRs, monitoring devices, and parts of IBR systems that provide software-based and firmware-based controls.”

NREL is receiving additional support from the DOE’s Solar Energy Technologies Office to support the new standard’s development.  With SETO, NREL will receive formal industry feedback on the listed requirements, develop test procedures, and perform beta testing of devices under the UL 2941 standard, Saleem said.

Products complying with UL 2941 will be eligible for UL certification. The testing is intended to be an add-on service for inverters, complementing UL 1741, the current standard for power inverters, converters, controllers and interconnection system equipment for distributed energy resources.

Following an increase in ransomware attacks in the U.S. energy markets in recent years and the need for new distributed energy systems following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, there has been an in flux of new DER resources tied to the grid in the U.S. and Europe.

A 2022 report by SETO called “Securing Solar for the Grid” called on national laboratories and industry participants to propose cybersecurity requirements for distributed energy resources. A DOE report on the topic calls for the DER market to engage in such discussions.

As deployment of rooftop solar, batteries and other DERs increases, the potential damage from a cyberattack on DERs also increases, according to the report. DERs now total 90 GW of capacity in the U.S., and are expected to grow to 380 GW by 2025, the DOE said.

In two potential scenarios of a cyber attack, an attacker could use ransomware to take control of multiple DERs, or could use a supply chain attack on an aggregator, or on another party that sends directions or updates to DERs, to influence the operation of the DERs, the DOE report noted.

In two other scenarios, a “botnet” could infect enough DERs with malware to enable the attacker to create unanticipated power swings on the grid, or a “worm” could spread from one DER to a higher-level distributed energy resource management (DERM) system, which could then send a false command to many DERs and instigate power instability.

The transition to decarbonized energy is expected to require significant amounts of lithium and other battery materials to support grid-level energy storage, electric vehicles, mobile devices, and more.

Recognizing the need to understand the dynamics of a steady supply chain of these materials, the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) developed a software tool called the Lithium-Ion Battery Resource Assessment Model (LIBRA).

Ongoing NREL research elucidates the need for supply chain strength for a clean energy future. The LIBRA model is helping researchers better understand the numerous factors that impact the lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery materials supply chain, a key to the energy transition.

“Li-ion batteries offer performance, energy density, cost, and cycle-life benefits. However, electrification efforts are complicated by various intersecting factors, including differences in markets, operations, and policies. In addition, Li-ion batteries may contain critical materials in short supply, such as cobalt, with few natural resources available domestically,” said NREL.

LIBRA uses system dynamics modeling to analyze the supply chain and evaluate the economic viability of Li-ion battery manufacturing, reuse and recycling. The tool considers changes in costs, battery adoption scenarios and international actions, and how these factors influence long-term trends in the battery supply chain.

“Although LIBRA can’t predict the future, this model allows researchers to ask and answer ‘what-if’ questions to gain insights into a complex and rapidly evolving industry. LIBRA offers a detailed and consistent approach to guide research and investments to secure the Li-ion supply chain, optimize recycling processes, and ensure resiliency and sustainability for nationwide grid and vehicle electrification,” said NREL.

The system dynamics analysis in LIBRA track the supply and flow of materials and costs over time for manufacturing and recycling. It includes advanced feedback loops that inform changes throughout stages of the chain. As a result, LIBRA can offer insights into material availability and demand for lithium.

“For example, if we extend the lifetime of EV batteries to reduce the overall environmental impact of Li-ion batteries, how might that lower the availability of recycled materials? There are many factors at play,” said Dustin Weigl, a mobility research analyst at NREL.

The tool tracks the movement of lithium, cobalt, nickel and other elements through the supply chain. The model has repeatedly shed light on the economic viability of recycling of these materials. It has highlighted an opportunity for regional potential of recycling to offset mineral imports.

Among other insights, LIBRA offers useful data and analysis for:

• Investments and research progress necessary to grow the LIB recycling industry
• Importance of battery chemistry and sorting in the recycling supply chain
• Specific regional potential of recycling to offset mineral imports
• Economic and job benefits due to battery manufacturing and recycling

“We are constantly updating LIBRA’s model structure and data based on the latest developments within the transportation and recycling industries,” said Weigl. “Technological advancements move quickly, but LIBRA is designed to adapt with next-generation cell chemistries, battery designs, and storage systems.”