Grids & Integration – pv magazine USA

The impact of semi-transparent solar modules on agrivoltaics yield

Lior Kahana — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 13:50:50 +0000

Researchers have conducted a field study across two growing seasons, growing different kinds of vegetables under three types of modules with 40%, 5%, and 0% transparency. Their work is the first replicated research experiment that evaluates module transparency in an irrigated vegetable field setting.

Scientists from Colorado State University have conducted field research on vegetable crop growth located below PV modules with varying transparency. The vegetables are grown under thin film, semi-transparent cadmium telluride (St-CdTe) modules with a transparency of 40%, bifacial monocrystalline silicon (BF-Si) modules with a transparency of 5%, and opaque polycrystalline silicon (O-Si) modules with a transparency of 0%.

“Semi-transparent PV (STPV) module technology has emerged as a potential solution to mitigate the negative effects of dense shade in cropping systems while maintaining a high module density,” said the academics. “To our knowledge, this is the first replicated research experiment that evaluates module transparency types in an irrigated vegetable field setting.”

The experiment was conducted over two growing seasons, 2020 and 2021. The study site was located in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA, in a field designated for research. Overall, the growth of six vegetables was tested: jalapeño pepper, bell pepper, lettuce, summer squash, Tasmanian chocolate tomatoes, and red racer tomatoes.

“There were three planted rows across the entire site – north, middle, and south,” explained the group. “Lettuce, peppers, and tomatoes were planted in two offset sub-rows in 0.9 m beds covered with black plastic mulch in the north and south rows. Squash was exclusively planted in the middle row both years with 1.2 m spacing on center.”

As for the PV modules, the scientists used three of each type. They were installed in a set position of 35 degrees facing south, with the bottom edge of the modules 1,220 mm above the ground and the back at a height of 2,360 mm. The ST-CdTe modules had a rated output of 57 W, the BF-Si had 360 W, and the O-Si had 325 W.

“Each of the 12 crop subplots, including both PV arrays and control plots, spanned a width of 4.3 m, with a 4.3 m spacing between adjacent subplots,” the researchers said. “Due to the single pole mount configuration, the shadow cast from the modules moved throughout the day. With this, the crops received direct sun early and late in the day, with maximum shade during the peak hours of the day and immediately under the modules.”

Per the results, the summer squash under all three module types displayed significantly lower yields than the control plot, regardless of the module transparency type. While in the control plot, under full sun conditions, the squash yielded 5.1 kg per plant, it grew 3.2 kg in the BF-Si scenario, 3.2 kg in the O-Si scenario, and 4.1 kg in the ST- CdTe scenario.

The other vegetables had equal or higher average yields to the control under the 40% transparent ST-CdTe treatment but with no statistically significant differences. The jalapeño peppers yielded 155 g per plant in full sun, 161 g in the BF-Si, 155 g in the O-Si, and 162 g in the ST- CdTe, while the bell pepper yielded 295 g per plant in full sun, 294 g in the BF-Si, 278 g in the O-Si, and 346 g in the ST- CdTe.

The lettuce weight per head was 105 g in full sun, 126 g in the BF-Si, 111 g in the O-Si, and 129 g in the ST- CdTe. The Tasmanian chocolate tomatoes had an average of 926 g per plant in full sun, 1,060 g in the BFSi, 1,069 g in the O-Si, and 1,278 g in the ST- CdTe. Lastly, the red racer tomatoes had 867 g per plant in full sun, 733 g in the BF-Si, 903 g in the O-Si, and 962 g in the ST- CdTe.

“The optimization of the agri-PV array with semi-transparent PV modules could increase agricultural production while maintaining the added protection of an energized canopy in traditional APV systems,” the researchers concluded. “More research is needed to better understand the economic tradeoffs between increased module transparency compared to vegetable crop production, while also considering the increased energy yield from module bifaciality.”

Their findings were presented in “Vegetable Crop Growth Under Photovoltaic (PV) Modules of Varying Transparencies,” published in Heliyon.

PV systems can now support grid as fossil fuels decline

Patrick Jowett — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 13:57:16 +0000

A new report by the International Energy Agency’s Photovoltaics Power Systems Programme (IEA-PVPS) says that existing PV systems have the technical capabilities to provide various frequency-related grid services.

From pv magazine Global

A new IEA-PVPS report says that PV systems need to take on additional grid support tasks traditionally managed by conventional power plants to ensure the stable operation of electrical power systems throughout the world. The Task 14 report ties up IEA-PVPS’ work on the potential of distributed solar and PV hybrid systems to provide frequency-related grid services.

It says that existing PV systems already have the technical capabilities to provide various frequency-related grid services, such as the reduction of active power generation in cases of overfrequency and, when in combination with battery energy storage systems (BESS), the automatic increase of their output in case of underfrequency.

The report predicts that the provision of such fast-frequency services by PV systems, with or without batteries, will become “very important in the near future,” particularly in supply areas which are dominated by inverter coupled generators.

It also features five case studies – two in Japan and one each in Austria, Germany and Italy – that cover the regulations, grid codes and frameworks that influence the operation of power systems in the region.

The report says each case study “clearly demonstrated that PV systems solely, or especially in combination with BESS, are able to provide different types of frequency-related grid services.” It adds that while the results of the case studies are promising, “further research and demonstration projects are necessary, especially for implementation of these frequency related services, which come along with grid-forming inverters.”

Gunter Arnold, one of the authors of the report, says that the study represents a major step forward in recognizing and using PV systems for frequency-related grid services. He says that the report’s insights will be crucial for policymakers, grid operators, and the renewable energy sector as the world moves toward a more sustainable energy future.

IEA-PVPS also recently wrapped up its 13th task, with the publication of a report on the optimization of bifacial PV tracking systems.

World’s highways could host 52.3 billion solar panels, say researchers

Patrick Jowett — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 16:22:26 +0000

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, Chinese Academy of Geosciences, and Columbia University have concluded that solar-covered highways could meet more than 60% of the world’s annual energy needs.

From pv magazine Global

A research team has determined that covering the world’s highways with solar roofs could generate 17,578 TWh per year, which is more than 60% of global electricity consumption in 2023.

Their study, titled “Roofing Highways With Solar Panels Substantially Reduces Carbon Emissions and Traffic Losses,” was recently published in the journal Earth’s Future. It explores the potential to install solar panels above highways and major roads.

With more than 3.2 million km of highways worldwide, the researchers calculated the costs and benefits of constructing a solar panel network using polycrystalline solar panels with a 250 W capacity. The analysis found that covering highways with solar panels could generate more than four times the annual energy output of the United States and offset 28.78% of current CO2 emissions, while also reducing global traffic deaths by 10.8%.

“This really surprised me,” said Ling Yao, a remote sensing scientist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the study’s lead author. “I didn’t realize that highways alone could support the deployment of such large photovoltaic installations, generating more than half of the world’s electricity demand, and greatly easing the pressure to reduce global carbon emissions.”

The researchers also identified regions such as eastern China, Western Europe, and the US East Coast as the most ideal for deployment, despite challenges related to setup and maintenance costs. Yao noted the importance of pilot programs to demonstrate the practicality of this concept.

The research team consisted of academics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University and Chinese Academy of Geosciences, all located in Beijing, as well as New York’s Columbia University.

Agrivoltaics for corn

Lior Kahana — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 14:10:19 +0000

Researchers have created a novel model that can help developers asses corn growth in agrivoltaic facilities. They also proposed to use spatiotemporal shadow distribution (SSD) to optimize crop yield and power production.

From pv magazine Global

A research group led by scientists from Purdue University has created a novel model for assessing the growth of corn in agrivoltaic facilities and has proposed to use a spatiotemporal shadow distribution (SSD) model to optimize crop yield and power production.

The new method is based on the agricultural production systems simulator (APSIM) plant model, which is based on finer temporal resolution, with literature reportedly supporting its validity. The SSD model, which accounts for the shadow cast by the PV panels, was used in conjunction with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) radiation data. These combined data were then calibrated and validated with the results from their field measurements.

The field experiment was conducted at an agrivoltaic farm at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, USA. There, PV panels were deployed in two arrangements, either 300 W modules placed adjacent to each other or 100 W modules arranged in an alternate checkerboard pattern. They all used single-axis trackers and are 6.1 meters high. The set-up was tested between April and October of 2020.

“For validation, 12 plots are considered,” the academics said. “Corn ears of three representative plants from each of these plots were hand-collected. Overall, 570 corn plants from the without-PV region and 36 corn plants from the with-PV region, respectively, were used in the analysis. The ears were cleaned, imaged, and processed using a DuPont pioneer ear photometer.”

The field measurement showed that the corn yield from the area without PV was measured to be 10,955 kg/ha, compared with the yield of 10,182 kg/ha of the PV area. That was in reported agreement with the novel model, which predicted 10,856 kg/ha for the no-PV area and 10,102 kg/ha for the agri-PV field.

The researchers then used the model to test the impact of the tracker height, distance between arrays, panel angle, and the activation of the tracking system on yield. They first found that designs that lower the tracker height without impeding the movement of plant machinery should be envisioned as the overall average corn yield is a weak function of the tracker height up to 2.44 m.

“However, the variability from one corn row to another increases as the tracker height is reduced,” they further explained. “Another interesting finding is that for our PV module sizes, increasing the distance between the adjacent PV rows beyond 9.1 m, while keeping the total power over the entire land constant, does not lead to an increase in corn yield based on the total land area.”

They also found that anti-tracking (AT) around solar noon provided the most significant increase in the corn yield. “However, this increase in corn yield of 5.6% is quite modest and should be weighed against a substantial decline in solar power,” the group emphasized.

The proposed model was presented in “Optimizing corn agrivoltaic farming through farm-scale experimentation and modeling,” published in Cell Reports Sustainability. The research group also included academics from Denmark’s Aarhus University.

Liquid metal battery storage specialist Ambri emerges from restructuring

Marija Maisch — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 16:10:46 +0000

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

From ESS News

Ambri has confirmed the closing of the sale of its assets in accordance with Section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code to a consortium of its lenders, as it prepares to take fresh steps toward commercialization of its long-duration storage technology.

Earlier this year, Ambri’s board, management and its lenders determined that a court-supervised 363 sale process was the best course to facilitate a comprehensive recapitalization in a bid to ensure long-term growth and profitability. The company filed for bankruptcy in May, blaming a challenging fundraising environment and thwarted plans to expand into manufacturing.

Now, the liquid metal battery storage startup has emerged with additional capital contribution from the Lender Consortium, whose bid was selected following a competitive sale process. The Lender Consortium comprises a group of Ambri’s pre-bankruptcy investors, including funds managed by each of Gates Frontier, Paulson and Co. Inc., Fortistar, and other investors.

“The team at Ambri has continued to make impressive progress towards a commercial long-duration battery system, including developing our third-generation cell product,” said David Bradwell, Ambri’s cofounder who is now taking the reins as the company’s new CEO.

“I am grateful for the dedication of our team and the support of our investors as we emerge as a leaner and more capital efficient organization. We look forward to offering our unique, safe, and low-cost commercial product to our customers at scale, to meet the strong customer demand for our battery systems, and for a cleaner energy future. As we embark on this fresh start with a stronger balance sheet and new capital, we are focused on positioning Ambri to play a leading role in the long duration energy storage market for the benefit of our stakeholders,” Bradwell said.

Founded in 2010 at MIT, Ambri has been working on building industrial-scale, liquid-metal batteries for over a decade. With Reliance Industries as one of its key investors, the company had plans to set up a large-scale battery manufacturing facility in India, in addition to building a 140,000 square foot facility in Milford, Massachusetts.

As it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the company said it had seen strong demand for its technology from across the market, equaling the planned output of its factory in Milford, Massachusetts, for three years.

Ambri’s batteries feature a liquid calcium alloy anode, a molten salt electrolyte, and a cathode comprised of solid particles of antimony, enabling the use of low-cost materials and a low number of steps in the cell assembly process.

To continue reading, visit our ESS News website.

New battery sizing approach for virtual synchronous generators, control-based grid-forming inverters

Emiliano Bellini — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 14:36:51 +0000

A group of researchers has outlined a new methodology to determine the minimum power rating of energy storage systems (ESSs) used for emergency under-frequency response. The ESS size must be calculated to maintain the frequency within the standard operating range.

From pv magazine Global

A group of researchers at the Edith Cowan University in Australia has proposed a new methodology to determine the optimal size of large inverter-connected energy storage systems (ESSs) planned for emergency under-frequency response.

“Delivering the necessary response with minimal ESS capacity is advantageous for power system planning and operating a fleet of partially discharged ESS units,” the scientists said, noting that the proposed solution is also feasible at low costs. “Characteristics such as rise time, overshoot, and settling time of active power response can be controlled by adjusting specific parameters.”

In the paper “Optimizing grid-forming inverters to prevent under-frequency load shedding with minimal energy storage,” published in the Journal of Energy Storage, the researchers explained that ESS active power capacity can be used to minimize under-frequency load shedding (UFLS) schemes, which are generally activated during low-frequency events, shedding predetermined loads to prevent further frequency drops.

“Since UFLS events are rare, some transmission system operators do not require maintaining headroom to cater for large disturbances,” the research team said. “Thus, using ESS for emergency under-frequency response is a cost-effective option. Additionally, delivering the necessary response with minimal ESS capacity is advantageous for power system planning and operating a fleet of partially discharged ESS units.”

The academics also explained that the novelty of their work consisted of determining a battery’s minimum power rating for both virtual synchronous generators (VSGs) and droop control-based grid-forming (GFM) inverters. The ESS size, they specified, must be calculated to maintain the frequency within the standard operating range.

“The ESS size is optimized to prevent under-frequency load shedding following a trip of a large generator by maintaining frequency within frequency operating standard (FoS),” they also emphasized. “The calculation of control parameters and ESS size determination considers the multi-step duration and thresholds provided by the FoS. UFLS protection settings are designed based on the FoS and sizing ESS to achieve a fixed frequency will not provide the optimum ESS size.”

The proposed approach is based on a Hill climbing algorithm, which is a classic optimization technique in artificial intelligence that takes inspiration from climbing to the peak of a mountain. It works by increasing the elevation value to find the peak of the mountain or the best solution to a given problem. It terminates when it reaches a peak value where no neighbor has a higher value.

The group investigated a case study of a power system implemented via DIgSilent PowerFactory software.

The simulation showed that for GFM inverters, a decrease in the active power droop coefficient increases the active power output. This increase, however, is limited by current inverters’ constraints. As a result, the scientists suggest maintaining the active power droop coefficient at a value that can prevent instability resulting from inverters’ limitations while maximizing the active power output.

As for VSGs, they suggested maintaining the acceleration constant, which can reportedly strike a balance between the rate of change of frequency (RoCoF) and power oscillations. They noted that the acceleration time constant of the VSG controller is proportional to inertia and increasing it enhances inertia.

“For the case considered in this study, the minimum energy storage power rating for the virtual synchronous generator control is 85 MVA, while for droop control, the minimum storage capacity is 89 MVA,” the scientists concluded. “The results of this study should be helpful for power system planners to better harness the capabilities of energy storage systems.”

IEA PVPS certifies that floating PV systems have small carbon footprint

Ralph Diermann — Fri, 02 Aug 2024 14:39:14 +0000

Floating systems cause slightly more CO2 emissions than land-based solar systems, mainly because of the additional components for the structure. But overall, they also perform very well from a climate perspective.

From pv magazine Germany

The Dutch research institute TNO has carried out a detailed life cycle analysis of floating PV systems on behalf of the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme (PVPS). It shows that the floating systems have a slightly larger carbon footprint than land-based systems, mainly due to the additional components for the floating structure.

According to the experts, the carbon footprint of floating systems is around 15% larger than that of land-based systems with an east-west orientation. Compared to those with a south orientation, it is around 25%. However, floating systems have other advantages, such as the use of water instead of land and potential synergies with hydroelectric power plants.

According to their calculations, the CO2 emissions of floating systems are around 50 grams per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated, around seven times less than the current electricity mix in Germany and three to four times less than the EU-wide target for 2030.

For their analysis, the experts compared two real floating systems, one in Germany with a support structure made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE), and one in the Netherlands with a structure made of steel and HDPE, with hypothetical systems on land.

Recycling further reduces the carbon footprint

According to the experts, the carbon footprint of the floating system could be reduced with three measures: by using electricity from low-emission sources in the manufacture of the PV modules, by using recycled materials in the support structures and by recycling the HDPE at the end of its life cycle.

“Our study of two operating systems in Western Europe shows that floating photovoltaic systems on small inland waters can be a good complement to ground-mounted systems from the point of view of greenhouse gas emissions over the entire life cycle,” said Josco Kester, co-author of the study.

The researchers recommend further research into the environmental impact of floating photovoltaic systems, particularly with regard to the impact on aquatic ecosystems.

Can the grid cope with the surge in electricity demand?

Anne Fischer — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 14:00:20 +0000

The grid needs to modernize to meet a booming demand for electricity, which is only predicted to grow even further in coming years. IEC Standards are key to help with the transition.

From pv magazine Global

Electricity demand around the world is expected to sky-rocket as we switch to electric-powered vehicles, heat pumps for our homes and pursue the vast digital transformation of society. Emerging nations are also expected to use an increasing amount of electricity as they industrialize and give their populations ever greater access to energy. While this massive switch over to electricity is expected to considerably reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and help in the fight against climate change, a mounting concern is that electricity grids won’t be able to cope with the increased demand.

Ringing the alarm bell

The International Energy Agency (IEA) started ringing the alarm bell with a report it claims is the first of its kind. Published in 2023, it states that the world must add or replace 80 million km of transmission lines by 2040, equal to all electricity networks installed globally today, to meet national climate targets and support energy security. The report identifies a large and growing queue of renewables projects waiting for the green light to be connected to the grid, pinpointing 1 500 gigawatts (GW) worth of these projects that are in advanced stages of development. This is five times the amount of solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind capacity that was added worldwide in 2022.

“The recent clean energy progress we have seen in many countries is unprecedented and cause for optimism, but it could be put in jeopardy if governments and businesses do not come together to ensure the world’s electricity grids are ready for the new global energy economy that is rapidly emerging,” says IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. “This report shows what’s at stake and needs to be done. We must invest in grids today or face gridlock tomorrow.”

The World Economic Forum (WEF) also urges world leaders to take note. A recently published article by Marcus Rebellius, a member of the WEF managing board and an expert working for one of Europe’s biggest manufacturers of electricity and electronic devices, indicates that “while the generation of clean energy is important, digitalizing and expanding our electricity grids is also vital for the green transition. Only with smarter, digitalized and expanded electricity grids will we create a decarbonized, resilient and secure electrical network for a net-zero future.”

He warns that increasing the amount of electricity generated to meet the increasing demand is not the issue, but that the key problem is that the grid must be prepared to handle larger amounts of electric power. “Weak grid infrastructure, legacy issues and an ageing system can all hamstring the green transition irrespective of the latest floating wind turbines or gigantic solar arrays,” he says.

Pointing towards the solutions

Grids have become the bottlenecks of the energy transition. Rebellius points to several technology solutions that could help resolve those bottlenecks, such as digital twins, or the use of low-voltage networks. (For more on digital twins and the electricity network: Digital twins and the smart grid. For more on low-voltage networks, read Affordable, sustainable electricity for all.

Other options include massively increasing energy storage capabilities and the widespread deployment of smart grid technologies around the world. The IEC Electropedia defines the smart grid as an electric power system that utilizes information exchange and control technologies, distributed computing and associated sensors and actuators, for purposes such as the integration of the behavior and actions of the network users and other stakeholders as well as efficiently deliver sustainable, economic and secure electricity supplies. Adopting smart grid technology is viewed by many experts in the field as a cheaper solution for utilities than expanding or rebuilding legacy electricity grids, which would require massive investments.

Increased energy storage is a key requirement

At times of high electricity demand, extra electric capacity must be immediately available or the grid risks shutting down. One way of ensuring continuous and sufficient access to electricity is to store energy when it is in surplus and feed it into the grid when there is an extra need for electricity. Utilities around the world have ramped up their storage capabilities using lithium-ion supersized batteries, huge packs that can store anywhere between 100 to 800 megawatts (MW) of energy. California-based Moss Landing’s energy storage facility is reportedly the world’s largest, with a total capacity of 750 MW. These huge battery storage facilities are expected to increase as the demand for electricity soars.

Other reliable energy storage solutions are pumped hydro which currently accounts for more than 90% of the globe ‘s current high capacity energy storage. Electricity is used to pump water into reservoirs at a higher altitude during periods of low energy demand. When demand is at its strongest, the water is piped through turbines situated at lower altitudes and converted back into electricity. Pumped storage enables to control voltage levels and maintain power quality in the grid.

Another option that is much talked about is to use electric vehicles (EVs) as a source of energy to deliver power to the grid. According to Frances Cleveland, who is a lead for cyber security and resilience guidelines in the IEC Systems Committee on Smart Energy (IEC SyC Smart Energy), “There are many research and pilot projects around the world that are deploying some form of bidirectional flow of energy (charging and discharging), either as vehicle-to-grid or vehicle-to-home with EVs, able to sell power to the main grid and even support the energy management of microgrids. One of the driving ideas behind these projects is to provide a means of storing energy in the EV from variable renewable resources, like solar and wind, for use at other times. This implies that EVs can actually be viewed as a type of distributed energy resource (DER).”

EVs can charge when renewable energy generation from wind or the sun is high or when there is a lower demand for electricity, for instance when people are sleeping. But when demand is high, or less energy is generated by the wind or the sun, the electricity stored in EV batteries could be put to contribution.

State of play for smart grids

According to the IEA, in a report that tracks the advancement of smart grids around the world, significant levels of investment in smart grid tech have been made in many countries around the world – even if much more needs to be done. Several examples are given, including the EU action plan Digitalisation of the energy system. The European Commission expects about EUR 584 billion (USD 633 billion) of investments in the European electricity grid by 2030, of which EUR 170 billion (USD 184 billion) would be for digitalization (smart meters, automated grid management, digital technologies for metering and improvement on the field operations). Another important source of information on the roll-out of smart grid tech is the Smart Grid Index, provided by a leading utilities group in the Asia Pacific and which is used by many experts involved in the field. According to Peter Jensen, the Chair of IEC TC 13 which prepares standards for smart meters, “The index provides an excellent view of the maturity of grid system operators in different regions of the world. It uses a grid modernization measure based on seven pillars,” he describes. (For more on IEC TC 13, read Peter Jensen’s interview in e-tech.)

IEC Standards to the rescue

IEC Standards help energy storage systems to interoperate and interconnect with the grid. They also pave the way for smart grid technologies to be used safely and efficiently. IEC TC 4 prepares standards for hydraulic turbines and has published IEC 60193 which specifies the requirements for pumped storage.

IEC TC 120 was set up to publish standards in the field of grid-integrated electrical energy storage (EES) systems to support grid requirements. The TC is working on a new standard, IEC 62933‑5‑4, which will specify safety test methods and procedures for lithium-ion battery-based systems for energy storage. IEC TC 69 prepares standards on electrical power/energy transfer systems for electrically propelled road vehicles drawing current from a rechargeable energy storage system. IEC TC 57 is the IEC committee that prepares core standards for the smart grid, notably the IEC 61850 series. They deal with substation automation, two-way information exchange, global control functions, renewable energy integration and cyber security, to name but a few. IEC TC 13 prepares key standards in the field of electrical energy measurement and control, for smart metering equipment and systems forming part of smart grids.

A subcommittee of IEC TC 8 prepares standards dealing with the integration of renewable energy systems in the grid. One of the four IEC Conformity Assessment (CA) Systems, IECRE (IEC System for Certification to Standards Relating to Equipment for Use in Renewable Energy Applications), is the internationally accepted CA system for all power plants producing, storing or converting energy from solar PV, wind and various forms of marine energy.

The IEC SyC Smart Energy helps to coordinate and guide the various efforts across these different IEC technical committees. It is for instance working on a document, IEC 63460, that will describe the architecture and use cases for EVs to provide grid support functions. Most of this standard will be concerned with identifying realistic EV charging and discharging configurations, and the communication and control between the various actors, grid system operators, aggregators, premises energy management and EV charging systems. The results from this document will hopefully help other IEC technical committees to take the grid-support capabilities of EVs into account as they develop their own standards.

The hope is that enough will be done in time to make sure the lights will be kept on as we move towards an all-electric and connected society. One certainty is that IEC Standards and conformity assessment will be called upon to play an ever-increasing role in ensuring we get there.

Author: Catherine Bischofberger

The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is a global, not-for-profit membership organization that brings together 174 countries and coordinates the work of 30.000 experts globally. IEC International Standards and conformity assessment underpin international trade in electrical and electronic goods. They facilitate electricity access and verify the safety, performance and interoperability of electric and electronic devices and systems, including for example, consumer devices such as mobile phones or refrigerators, office and medical equipment, information technology, electricity generation, and much more.

Sunrise brief: U.S. Bureau of Land Management advances over 6 GW of solar projects

pv magazine — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 12:06:03 +0000

Also on the rise: U.S. clean energy tax credit market to reach $25 billion in 2024. Six states offer grants to help local governments automate solar permitting. And more.

Six states offer grants to help local governments automate solar permitting Solar trade groups in Washington, Colorado and Minnesota advocated for grant programs to speed permitting for rooftop solar, using software such as SolarAPP+. Three other states also offer grants, with two requiring automated permitting.

Community solar needs to embrace urban rooftops and brownfields RE+ Mid-Atlantic solar conference panel: While developers prefer greenfield projects, state regulators target other project sites.

Reactive power management key to advancing grid stability A look at the regulatory frameworks and practical applications, underscoring the essential role of reactive power management in maintaining a stable and efficient power grid.

U.S. Bureau of Land Management advances over 6 GW of solar projects Once complete, the projects would generate enough electricity to power roughly 2 million homes.

U.S. clean energy tax credit market to reach $25 billion in 2024 A mid-year report from tax credit marketplace Crux showed that deal volume is expected to come in higher than previously expected at $20 to $25 billion this year.

New model to identify optimal power sizing ratio for solar inverters

Ryan Kennedy — Wed, 24 Jul 2024 14:00:59 +0000

Researchers in Malaysia have proposed a new approach to identify the optimal power sizing ratio to balance PV energy capture with inverter costs. The calibrated model is said to accurately reflect the relationship between inverter efficiency and real-world system behavior.

From pv magazine Global

Researchers at the Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka have outlined a techno-economic optimization approach to define the appropriate power sizing ratio (PSR) for inverters used in grid-connected PV systems.

The PSR is the ratio of the inverter’s rated power to the total rated power of the connected PV modules and is crucial to maximizing energy yield and income. “An undersized inverter limits the system’s ability to convert all the generated DC power to AC power, leading to potential energy losses,” the scientists explained. “Conversely, an oversized inverter incurs higher initial costs without a proportional increase in energy production.”

The proposed methodology uses a pattern search algorithm (PSA), which is an optimization technique commonly utilized for problems with complex relationships and potentially noisy data, to ensure an accurate representation of real-world inverter behavior.

The model considers radiation, convection thermal representations, and real-world weather data. It also takes into account data from the inverters’ datasheets to evaluate the efficiency curve of the devices. From this curve, it then extracts key points to identify efficiency values between the chosen data points.

“The model undergoes a calibration phase where the efficiency curve points are iteratively adjusted by the PSA until the estimated/modeled values closely match the actual measurements obtained from the real system over a predefined period,” the group explained. “This calibration step guarantees that the model accurately reflects the real-world performance of the system.”

According to the scientists, the model can estimate the annual power yield of a solar array for each iteration step through various DC/AC power ratios, which in turn allows PV system owners to find the optimized ratio that maximizes energy production.

They also warned that the proper selection of the optimal PSR needs to be complemented by economic considerations relating to inverter costs, operation and maintenance, inverter complexity, and monitoring systems. “It’s important to note that the cost function doesn’t directly represent monetary value but rather a relative measure of economic performance,” they stressed. “The actual economic feasibility would depend on specific system costs and electricity prices.”

The novel methodology was presented in the study “Techno-economic optimization of photovoltaic (PV)-inverter power sizing ratio for grid-connected PV systems,” published in Results in Engineering.

“Future research directions involve exploring the integration of additional factors into the model,” the research team concluded. “These factors could include advanced weather forecasting capabilities, dynamic pricing schemes, and potential application to different types of PV systems or even broader renewable energy systems.”

Grid operator PJM to start talks on regional transmission

William Driscoll — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 16:37:47 +0000

The nation’s largest grid operator told renewables trade groups that it will launch a transmission planning process ordered by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

PJM Interconnection, which provides transmission from Chicago to New Jersey, said it will launch a stakeholder engagement process in August to “help inform inputs” into scenario analyses for long-term regional transmission planning.

PJM and other transmission providers are required by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC’s) Order No. 1920 “to plan for the transmission we know we will need in the future,” FERC has explained. Scenario analyses are part of the planning process.

PJM announced the stakeholder engagement process in its response to a letter from three renewables-focused trade groups and other entities asking PJM to “shift its current long-term regional transmission planning proposal to focus on Order No. 1920 directives.”

PJM region

Image: PJM

One of the trade groups, American Council on Renewable Energy, said last year that 167 GW of large-scale solar, wind and storage projects awaited interconnection studies by PJM. The group said that a lack of transmission capacity due to “insufficient” transmission planning is a “root cause of the unprecedented backlog” of interconnection requests across grid operators nationwide. Trade groups Americans for a Clean Energy Grid and Advanced Energy United also signed the letter.

In the works

PJM issued a regional transmission expansion plan last year that “identified” 93 transmission projects at a cost of $180 million to support generation seeking interconnection, and 48 new baseline projects at an estimated cost of $6.6 billion to maintain grid reliability, said a FERC staff report in March, while PJM “evaluated” 227 supplemental projects put forward by transmission owners that would cost $2.4 billion.

A major “national interest” transmission corridor in the PJM region has been proposed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that would help PJM “maintain and improve reliability, lower consumer costs, and meet future generation and demand growth,” DOE said.

Nationwide, a DOE transmission needs study found that 54,500 GW-miles of within-region transmission must be added for a clean grid under “the most likely power sector future.”

“Ultimate directives”

The trade groups expressed a concern in their letter that “PJM’s recent rehearing request to FERC suggests that PJM may seek to avoid implementing some important components of Order No. 1920.”

Responding to that concern, PJM said its rehearing request sought “flexibility” to implement the FERC order’s requirements “in a less prescriptive way such that PJM can tailor its approach to reflect its unique circumstances and regional needs.” PJM said that FERC will rule on “the numerous rehearing requests filed,” and said it “will comply in full with [the] Commission’s ultimate directives.”

States’ role

FERC said that its order “expands states’ pivotal role throughout the process of planning, selecting, and determining how to pay for transmission facilities.”

The governors of four states served by PJM—Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey—said in a letter to PJM last month that transmission planning is important in “developing large-scale low-and-zero emission energy resources.”

The governors said they “applaud” the grid operator’s steps to prepare for scenario discussions “that include each of our states,” and look forward to extensive engagement with PJM management and stakeholders “in shaping regional transmission planning and cost allocation approaches.”

All 13 states served by PJM had called for the grid operator to make faster progress on interconnection of renewable generation projects in 2022, in comments to FERC from the Organization of PJM States, Inc. (OPSI).

State do not have representation in PJM’s governance structure, but PJM says in a website document that it “works closely with state regulatory commissions to identify and respond to local matters,” explaining that OPSI, made up of the state commissions in PJM’s region, acts as a “liaison group” to PJM and its members.

Sixty-nine state legislators from 10 states served by PJM called this week for the grid operator to “work without delay” to implement FERC Order No. 1920, saying that “effective implementation” of the order is “critical to our responsibility to ensure that our constituents have access to reliable, affordable and clean electricity,” in a letter organized by the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators.

In case you missed it: Five big solar news stories this week

pv magazine — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 16:27:29 +0000

pv magazine USA spotlights news of the past week including market trends, project updates, policy changes and more.

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

U.S. manufacturer Toledo Solar closes business The Ohio based thin-film solar module producer was sued last year by First Solar, which alleged that Toledo Solar sold Malaysian-made First Solar modules under the Toledo name. It has announced it will cease operations.

President Biden visits Toledo Solar.
Image: Toledo Solar

Solar tariffs could “unintentionally cede U.S. leadership in the solar industry” A report from Clean Energy Associates (CEA) and the American Council on Renewable Energy shows how antidumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) tariffs create cost issues not just for imported solar panels, but for U.S.-made solar panels as well.

Image: ACORE / CEA

Solar panel cleaning with electromagnetic waves Three companies, including Massachusetts startup Sol Clarity, are experimenting with electrodynamic screen systems to clean solar panels using minimal electricity and no water.

Solar supply chain, technology trends, and policy update A report from Clean Energy Associates (CEA) provides the latest on global and regional solar supply chains, technological trends, and market impacts from policy.

Image: CEA

In case you missed it: Five big solar stories in the news this week

pv magazine — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 21:00:13 +0000

pv magazine USA spotlights news of the past week including market trends, project updates, policy changes and more.

Tesla battery deployment jumped way up while Megapack is down Tesla revealed a significant increase in energy storage deployment, officially reporting revenue for 9.4 GWh of deployed storage products.

Tesla Megapack “Sierra Estrella” installation in Arizona

Image: Tesla

Experts consider speedy utility-scale interconnection in Texas going nationwide Some experts shared data to back up their praise for the “connect and manage” approach used by Texas grid operator ERCOT, while others speaking on an industry panel explained their reservations.

Clearway’s Texas Solar Nova.

Image: Clearway

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

Bureau of Land Management land in Arizona.

Image: BLM

Yotta Energy launches ‘panel-level storage’ package for C&I solar U.S. storage and inverter specialist Yotta Energy says its new package has several advantages compared to conventional C&I solar storage solutions.

Lithium-ion battery fire safety starts with the manufacturer Fluence America’s president says stakeholder and first responder engagement is necessary to keep failures from becoming newsworthy events.

Fluence works with customers, first responders, standards bodies and industry to ensure that its energy storage systems, like its Gridstack units, pictured here, operate safely over their lifetimes.

Image: Fluence

Time to talk solar curtailment

Ryan Kennedy — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 15:40:48 +0000

It’s time to assess curtailment, as rising amounts of excess generation are being wasted in several markets. This can be problematic for the solar industry but Toby Couture and David Jacobs, coordinators of think tank Global Solar PV Brain Trust, argue that curtailment is not always bad.

From pv magazine 6/24

Curtailment is becoming an increasingly important issue for the power sector, particularly as the share of solar and other intermittent-generation renewable energy sources continues to grow.

At small volumes, curtailment rarely poses a major issue for solar plant operators, or for the financial viability of projects. This is mainly because most jurisdictions continue to offer “take-or-pay” contracts that shelter PV project owners, either in part or in full, from revenue losses associated with curtailed electricity output.

In larger volumes, however, curtailment has the potential to undermine the economics of new solar projects, significantly increasing investment risk. Unlike in the past, when solar projects were financed via long-term contracts in the context of auctions or feed-in tariffs, many sites are now being financed either via bilateral power purchase agreements (PPAs) or on a merchant basis, which involves selling energy on the open market. Uncertainty about the volume of electricity that could be curtailed directly increases the cost of capital for PV projects and, in turn, puts upward pressure on the cost of solar. Furthermore, a perception that solar output is being “wasted” could gradually erode public support for further PV deployment, particularly if the curtailed volumes grow substantially.

Deep cuts

Data from a selection of markets show that curtailment is on the rise. In Chile, the curtailment of solar has increased significantly in recent years, affecting 1.4 TWh of output in 2022 – roughly 1.8% of annual electricity demand – and nearly 800 GWh in the first five months of 2023. In Cyprus, PV curtailment has grown from just over 3% of generation in 2022 to more than 13% in 2023. In parts of Australia, curtailment has grown from roughly 4%, in the first quarter of 2022, to more than 7% in the opening three months of 2023, with certain days posting curtailment levels nearing 20% of total available PV output. In parts of the United States, curtailment is also on the rise: in Texas, 9% of the output from utility scale solar was curtailed in 2022. In California, more than 3% was curtailed in the same year. In Germany, the curtailment of solar amounted to almost 2% of total PV output in 2022.

At its core, curtailment is a symptom of an insufficiently flexible power system. Fortunately, experience shows that curtailment can be avoided or significantly reduced through policy. Particularly during the early phases of PV penetration – when up to 10% of power generation comes from solar – there are often other, lower-cost flexibility options available.

At this early stage, the toolkit includes measures such as reducing the must-run hours of fossil-fuel-based power plants; increasing the flexibility of other power generation sources, such as hydropower or biomass; moving toward economic dispatch; introducing intra-day electricity markets; and improving both demand and solar output forecasting.

Broader toolkit

At higher shares of solar generation, a broader toolkit is starting to emerge. Measures include increasing the flexibility and responsiveness of power demand, introducing combined procurement of solar-plus-storage systems, encouraging new business models such as virtual power plants and aggregators, introducing more dynamic electricity pricing, including locational pricing, and making greater use of surplus electricity in the transport and heating and cooling sectors.

Basic economics are also helping as periods of electricity oversupply lead to lower prices, which in turn makes it more attractive to consume electricity. In South Australia, the power system experiences sub-zero electricity prices almost 60% of the time between roughly 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. With the continued growth of solar, and without a significant scale-up of demand-side flexibility, markets such as South Australia will start facing repeated periods where daytime electricity prices are permanently negative between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.

In response, the government and power utilities have started implementing measures to encourage greater flexibility, including through demand-response-enabled pool heaters and air conditioning units, variable electricity pricing, and flexible electric vehicle charging.

Not all negative

From a power system standpoint, curtailment should not be thought of purely in negative terms. It can also contribute to power system flexibility in a manner that can be activated relatively easily to maintain system stability.

In fact, it may be less expensive for solar project operators – as well as for the system as a whole – to curtail PV output occasionally than it would be to build out large-scale energy storage or power grids to ensure that solar output is never curtailed.

With the share of solar rising in virtually every country around the world, it is time for a wider debate about curtailment, how to bind it contractually, and how curtailment itself stacks up both in technical and economic terms against other ways of balancing energy systems. As the world progresses toward its second terawatt of installed solar generation capacity, and beyond, this debate is only going to grow in urgency and importance.

About the authors: Toby Couture is the founder and director of E3 Analytics, an independent renewable energy consultancy in Berlin, Germany. He has 15 years’ experience in the sector and has advised dozens of national and state governments throughout the world on renewable energy policy, strategy, and finance.

David Jacobs is the managing director and founder of International Energy Transition GmbH (IET). He has 20 years’ experience in energy policy design, authoring more than 100 publications. He has advised policymakers in more than 40 countries.

How to speed interconnection studies

William Driscoll — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 15:40:22 +0000

Automation of interconnection study processes is already underway and has room to grow, said executives from Pearl Street Technologies and Nira Energy on an industry panel. Other panelists discussed developing the engineering workforce.

About 80% of interconnection study tasks could be automated, allowing transmission providers to focus on “the harder problems where their judgment and experience are really necessary,” said David Bromberg, co-founder and CEO of software firm Pearl Street Technologies, at the Transmission and Interconnection Summit held outside Washington, DC.

Pearl Street has built software for transmission providers that accelerates interconnection studies, and similar software for renewable energy developers “to better manage risk and uncertainty in interconnection and clear more of their projects,” Bromberg said.

Pearl Street’s software has modeled more than 1,000 generation and storage projects, including 180 GW of renewables projects, the company’s website says.

Andrew Martin, head of transmission for software firm Nira Energy, said transmission providers and utilities “should have a goal of communicating” an interconnection study process that is reproducible. Once there’s a reproducible process—for example, once an engineer can replicate the study results—“then the market can continue to build upon that reproducibility” by developing software, he said.

“These study processes that we all do are very deterministic,” Martin added. “There is a right and a wrong way to do them, and that’s something that software is super helpful with.” On a related note, he said “we should strive to get to a place where transmission planning engineers are not needing to do repetitive tasks.”

Martin said that grid operators MISO, PJM and SPP have interconnection study processes that are reproducible, and that for those three markets, Nira Energy offers software for project developers.

Once developers get their phase one study results, Martin said, “they’re determining whether or not they want to stay in the queue,” based on what they think their results will be at phase three and the generator interconnection agreement phase. “For them to be able to do that, they need to first be able to replicate the phase one results, so they can take a step forward and do more complicated things on top of that, while being able to trust what they’re doing.”

Bromberg said his work was initially inspired by the electronic design automation industry that simulates and designs electronic chips. He said that a chip can be “an extremely complex electronic system with billions of components, and there are software tools that help automate the design and analysis and optimization of those chips, and those tools are very, very powerful.” In comparison, he said, “the power grid is geographically very large, but network-wise, it’s orders of magnitude smaller, and switching at lower frequencies.”

Anupam Gopal, president and CEO of the consultancy Enerzinx, said his firm performs power system modeling for project developers and utilities in the U.S. and three other countries. In a discussion on the engineering workforce, he said that “in other parts of the world, they offload” interconnection studies to project developers, “so that way it is not centralized to one organization. It’s spread around all the developers” and the transmission provider “basically only approves or disapproves.”

Caitlin Marquis, managing director with the trade group Advanced Energy United, whose members develop large-scale generating projects, said that both the group’s members and transmission providers rely on consulting firms. She said the group surveyed transmission providers and found that using third-party consultants is a “benefit” and “improves the throughput of studies” but can cause “challenges with coordination” due to “reliance on multiple different external parties that might have different engineering judgment or different conclusions.”

Demand for engineers

Shankar Chandramowli, director for energy power markets at the consultancy ICF and the panel’s moderator, cited a study finding that one of three engineering jobs goes unfilled in the U.S., and added that many grid operators, known as ISOs and RTOs, “don’t have power system engineers to run the models themselves.”

Noting the 2600 gigawatts of active queue capacity in the U.S., Chandramowli called for reconciling the “competing objectives” of speed and accuracy in interconnection studies, by automating the study process and having a skilled power systems engineering workforce to use and advance the process.

Radha Soorya, vice president for interconnections and grid analysis for Invenergy, said that “as the developer on the panel, I can surely address this, because I took two years to fill an engineer position.” She said Invenergy has committed to train and develop 2500 individuals “so they can enroll, train and develop a career in the energy industry.”

High school and undergraduate students are familiar with career opportunities in robotics, AI and medicine, Soorya said, but not in energy or electrical engineering. Invenergy plans to share a curriculum with students and teachers “about the foundation of electrical engineering, so that it can be a skill set they can bring when they graduate,” and that Invenergy will also provide career counseling and internships during college.

The conference session was titled “Innovative solutions to increase the pace of interconnection studies and system planning while reducing labor intensity.” The conference was produced by Infocast and supported by 15 sponsors.

Sunrise brief: Looking to Texas as model of speedy interconnection

pv magazine — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 12:22:49 +0000

Also on the rise: UL Solutions introduces new testing protocol for residential battery storage systems. Trina Solar begins mass production of 430-455 W full-black modules. And more.

Trina Solar begins mass production of 430-455 W full-black modules Trina Solar says it has launched mass production of 430 W to 455 W full-black PV modules. The Vertex S+ panels have efficiencies of up to 22.8% and weigh 21 kg, with a 1.6 mm x 1.6 mm dual-glass design.

UL Solutions introduces new testing protocol for residential battery storage systems The latest test method addresses the fire propagation behavior of a residential battery energy storage system if a thermal runaway propagation event leading to an internal fire were to occur during the system’s lifetime.

Rutgers University studies co-locating solar energy with crop production The university is working with SolarEdge to study the practices of agrivoltaics, or co-located solar and farming.

Tunisian solar module maker Ifrisol targeting U.S. manufacturing Ifrisol, a Tunisian PV module maker, is targeting the US market by producing solar panels with cells sourced from unspecified “non-Chinese” Asian manufacturers.

Experts consider speedy utility-scale interconnection in Texas going nationwide

William Driscoll — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 19:02:13 +0000

Some experts shared data to back up their praise for the “connect and manage” approach used by Texas grid operator ERCOT, while others speaking on an industry panel explained their reservations.

National goals for utility-scale interconnection for the rest of the country are already being met in the ERCOT grid region in Texas, which uses a “connect and manage” approach, said Mario Hayden, director, transmission at Enel North America, at the Transmission and Interconnection Summit held outside Washington, DC.

It takes just a year, Hayden said, for a solar or storage developer that has filed an interconnection request with ERCOT to progress through the full interconnection study process and reach an interconnection agreement.

Noting a key downside of the “connect and manage” approach, namely the risk of curtailment if transmission capacity is inadequate, Mike Tabrizi, founder and president of Zero Emission Grid, said that although a project developer in the ERCOT region can interconnect to transmission at their own risk, and not be responsible for transmission costs upfront, once the project becomes operational, “then you are fully exposed what’s going to happen with transmission.”

ERCOT says it takes three to six years to energize transmission lines in Texas, said panel moderator Tom Kleckner in his introductory statement. Kleckner, the ERCOT/SPP correspondent for RTO Insider, related that ERCOT says energizing transmission elsewhere in the U.S. takes seven to 13 years. As a single-state entity, ERCOT is not subject to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rules, Kleckner said, “so it saves some four years in federal compliance and two years in signing and construction.”

Regan Fink, manager, transmission & interconnection policy for Pine Gate Renewables, described two issues related to managing the need for more transmission, which she called the “manage” aspect of “connect and manage.” First, ERCOT lacks proactive transmission planning, she said, adding that while “it’s really hard” to do, “some of it needs to be done.”

Second, she said that as a generator, “there’s no formal process to sponsor your own upgrades. If you’re facing a lot of curtailment and congestion, but it’s not enough” for ERCOT as a system to decide whether to build upgrades, “then we might be stuck with that. While we’ve been told by ERCOT that we can coordinate with the transmission service providers” in the grid region about sponsoring upgrades, “we would like to see a more formal process.”

Pranay Reminisetty, team lead for resource integration at the consultancy DNV, said that because of ERCOT’s “big backlog in transmission,” interconnecting a project to ERCOT’s grid without knowing how much production will be curtailed presents a financial risk for developers. “So we need more transmission in order to go into energy-only resources,” he said.

Yet in the nation’s other grid regions, he said the financial risks come from uncertainty over both the network upgrade costs that will be assigned to a project to interconnect, and the grid operator’s affected system study cost for a project, which he called a “surprise cost” for the developer.

Tyler Norris, a former Cypress Creek Renewables executive and current Ph.D. candidate, said that “it’s no secret” that staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) “are quite interested in the topic of flexible interconnection options,” such as ERCOT’s approach.

Flexible interconnection was “really front and center in the U.S. Department of Energy’s interconnection roadmap,” he said, “and I think that really caught the attention of FERC staff.” FERC will hold a workshop on innovations and efficiencies in generator interconnection on September 10 and 11, he noted.

With electric loads projected to increase, creating “more pressure to get more generation on the system,” Norris predicted that “we’re going to see a significant increase in demand for more flexible interconnection options in the years ahead, including energy-only interconnection, ”such as ERCOT’s approach, as well as “provisional service, and potentially other fast track options.”

Norris said his team’s ongoing analysis of 3500 interconnection studies for solar projects shows that upgrade costs for energy-only interconnection have been nearly equivalent to upgrade costs for network resource interconnection. The lack of cost savings for energy-only interconnection, he suggested, shows that energy-only interconnection is “not living up to (FERC’s) original intent,” when FERC created that service option in its Order 2003, as a “credible alternative to network resource interconnection service that would be faster and cheaper.”

“There’s a lot we can do to improve energy-only interconnection service and provisional service,” he said.

Regan said in the question period that “we don’t expect a major order” from FERC to result from its September workshop.

DNV Principal Consultant Morgan Putnam said in a comment posted in the question-ranking app that “Our collective desire for 0% curtailment has greatly misled the industry.“

The panel discussion’s theme was “Can the ERCOT ‘connect and manage’ approach lead to faster and cheaper grid interconnection nationwide?”

The conference was produced by Infocast and supported by 15 sponsors.

Rutgers University studies co-locating solar energy with crop production

Ryan Kennedy — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 18:31:43 +0000

The university is working with SolarEdge to study the practices of agrivoltaics, or co-located solar and farming.

SolarEdge Technologies, a provider of inverters, module level power electronics, battery energy storage, and other related technologies, announced it has been selected by Rutgers University to support research of dual-use agrivoltaics.

Agrivoltaics is the practice of installing solar arrays on function farmland. The arrays are typically raised higher than a traditional array, leaving space for crops to grow below.

Administered by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, Rutgers will assist the Dual-Use Solar Energy Pilot Program. The program is a three-year study of 200 MW of agrivoltaic installations.

“The aim of our research is to develop knowledge that will help to establish practices that can help improve both the sustainability and viability of farms through safe and regulated adoption of solar energy,” said Margaret Brennan-Tonetta, director of resource and economic development, New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station.

(Read “Has the US caught up with European agrivoltaic deployment?”)

The program includes three project sites, including a different panel mounting method to understand effects on cost, agricultural production, and electricity generation.

Rutgers Animal Farm in New Brunswick has vertically mounted bifacial panels and will be used for the production of forage crops and beef cattle grazing (170 kWDC installed and grid-connected)

Snyder Research and Extension Farm in Pittstown has single-axis trackers and will be used for hay production (94.5 kWDC installed and 82.4 kWDC grid-connected)

Rutgers Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Bridgeton has single axis trackers with both single-wide and double-wide rows of panels and will be used for the production of vegetable and staple crops (255 kWDC installed and 48.6 kWDC grid-connected)

Each site will use SolarEdge’s module level power electronics (MLPE) to collect and analyze production data.

“Agrivoltaics is a perfect example of a real ‘win-win’,” said Bertrand Vandewiele, general manager, SolarEdge North America. “This practice allows for expanded solar development to address climate change, without the land-use challenges often associated with ground mounted solar developments. It can also provide benefits for farmers, allowing a stable revenue stream and protection against climate hazards.”

Vandewiele shared that in the U.S., there are already more than 500 active agrivoltaics sites, adding a total of 9 GW of solar capacity to the grid. He said these numbers are likely to grow as interest in agrivoltaics has been greatly expanding, as indicated by the increase in support and funding for the sector. For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s funding for agrivoltaics more than tripled from 2021 to 2022.

NJBPU, the New Jersey Department of Agriculture, the State Agricultural Development Committee, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, and the Rutgers Agrivoltaics Program are participating in the pilot.

(Read about a vertical solar study at Rutgers in “New Jersey farm studies agrivoltaics with vertically mounted solar“)

Research areas for the pilot program will include:

Impact on yield and quality of vegetables, nursery crops, sod, cranberries, blueberries and grapes

Impact on pastures and animals (sheep, cows, horses) grazing underneath solar panels

Opportunities for Controlled Environment Agriculture (greenhouses and high tunnels), including the use of supplemental lighting powered by photovoltaics

Greenhouse Gas (GHG) based-Life cycle assessment for conventional field production versus crops grown under agrivoltaic systems, including the impact on water consumption and renewable energy generation

Optimal design of agrivoltaic systems for NJ farms (pole placement and height, panel type and efficiency, panel tilt angle, tracking systems, etc.)

Economic opportunities and challenges for agrivoltaics in NJ

In case you missed it: Five big solar stories in the news this week

pv magazine — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 22:00:30 +0000

pv magazine USA spotlights news of the past week including market trends, project updates, policy changes and more.

Dissecting a $600,000 tax credit transfer In the past, even the smallest projects that attracted tax equity investors required $1 to $2 million in tax benefits to offset the $75,000 in fees. That landscape is now evolving.

1.2 MW Gainesville, Florida solar farm.

Image: Basis Climate

Top solar panel brands in reliability, quality, and performance Solar modules are evaluated in the Renewable Energy Test Center annual PV Module Index. Overall top performers (in alphabetical order): Astronergy, ES Foundry, Gstar, JA Solar, Longi Solar, Runergy, SolarSpace, Trina Solar, and Yingli Solar.

Maine may design a distribution system operator to advance distributed energy resources The Pine Tree State has hired a consulting firm to evaluate whether forming a distribution system operator could speed deployment of distributed energy resources and support other state goals. Consultants are reviewing how the approach is used in five other countries.

City of Detroit to install solar in mostly vacant neighborhoods Three Detroit neighborhoods were chosen as sites for solar facilities. The City plans to build 33 MW of solar to power its municipal buildings.

See where solar manufacturing is planned in North America on Sinovoltaics’ Supply Chain map The up-to-date map provides details on 95 factories producing PV modules, cells, wafers, ingots, polysilicon, and metallurgical-grade silicon in Mexico, Canada, and the United States, up from 81 in the first quarter.

Sunrise brief: New platform vets residential solar salespeople

pv magazine — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 12:00:05 +0000

Also on the rise: Siting solar projects for best environmental results. Top solar panel brands in reliability, quality, and performance. And more.

Maine may design a distribution system operator to advance distributed energy resources Maine has hired a consulting firm to evaluate whether forming a distribution system operator could speed deployment of distributed energy resources and support other state goals. Consultants are reviewing how the approach is used in five other countries.

New platform vets residential solar salespeople An industry plagued by deceptive practices is now verifying salespeople via a platform called Recheck.

Summit Ridge to procure 800 MW of Qcells solar panels The recent agreement brings the total to 2 GW of solar modules that the community solar specialist will purchase from Qcells, mostly manufactured in its facility in Georgia.

More solar installations coming to U.S. military bases In a partnership with Duke Energy valued at an estimated $248 million, the U.S. Department of Defense will be the exclusive purchaser of all output generated by two new solar facilities, which will serve five military bases.

Siting solar projects for best environmental results A new white paper from Clearloop identifies key U.S. regions for best carbon displacement impact of new clean energy projects.

Top solar panel brands in reliability, quality, and performance Solar modules are evaluated in the Renewable Energy Test Center annual PV Module Index.

pv magazine interview: ‘In the next year, some of these guys are going to be bankrupt’ At Intersolar in Munich, pv magazine spoke with Jenny Chase, solar analyst at BloombergNEF, about the incredibly low polysilicon prices, massive overcapacity, and increasing consolidation. According to Chase, this year there will be enough polysilicon capacity to produce 1.1 TW of solar modules, but global module demand is expected to reach around 585 GW.

Maine may design a distribution system operator to advance distributed energy resources

William Driscoll — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 13:30:30 +0000

Maine has hired a consulting firm to evaluate whether forming a distribution system operator could speed deployment of distributed energy resources and support other state goals. Consultants are reviewing how the approach is used in five other countries.

Maine has hired the consulting firm Strategen to evaluate whether a distribution system operator (DSO) could be designed to achieve growth in distributed energy resources and help the state meet other goals: lower electricity costs, improved electric system reliability, and the state’s overall climate goals.

The state law calling for the study defines roles for a DSO including overseeing integrated system planning, operating the state’s electric grids, and administering a market for distributed energy resources (DERs).

Speaking on a webinar about the study, Strategen Advisor Matthew McDonnell said the firm will evaluate the potential to reduce customers’ electric bills by first considering the “base case” for the state of Maine—that is, investment priorities that have already been established through integrated resource planning or other means. The firm will then “look at how a differentiation from that base case to more of a high DER state, as facilitated by a prospective DSO, can enable some potential cost savings going forward through load flexibility and other opportunities.”

Responding to a question about distributed storage, McDonnell added “certainly we’re thinking about distributed energy storage and its use either as a standalone asset or in conjunction with distributed solar or other energy resources.”

Standalone distributed solar was not mentioned on the webinar, which was hosted by the Maine Governor’s energy office.

The energy office said in a statement that no jurisdiction in the U.S. now has a DSO. McDonnell said Strategen is “looking to draw learnings” from similar distribution network operator approaches used in parts of the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, France, and Ontario, Canada.

If Strategen’s initial study concludes that a DSO can be designed to help achieve the state’s objectives, and the Governor’s energy office agrees with that conclusion, Strategen will conduct a second part of the study to develop a DSO design proposal that identifies the scope and characteristics of a DSO.

A DSO design “may not include the acquisition or ownership of any transmission and distribution utility assets,” the state law says. The law calls on the Maine governor’s energy office to ensure opportunities for stakeholder engagement throughout the study process.

The Strategen team includes consultants Lorenzo Kristov, who previously worked for California’s grid operator CAISO, and Mark Patterson, principal at Energy Catalyst in Australia.

Strategen expects the draft of its initial study to be released in late summer. If a second part of the study is authorized, that part is expected to be completed by year-end.

The nonprofit Clean Coalition, based in California, has advocated for the formation of distribution system operators in that state.

Sunrise brief: Utility-scale solar far less costly than the cheapest fossil fuel source

pv magazine — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 12:00:59 +0000

Also on the rise: Five Puerto Rico reservoirs could host 596 MW of floating solar. Weather-related damage to solar assets exceed modeling expectations by 300%. And more.

Flexible interconnection with curtailed output can benefit everyone, analyst says Allowing flexible interconnection for large solar projects can reduce costs and speed deployment, benefiting developers, ratepayers and utility staff, said a presenter at a North Carolina conference of utility regulators.

Startup launches online platform for residential PV system purchase Two-year old Monalee developed an online platform for homeowners looking to buy solar PV and storage systems. Its software enables the process from quotes to financing, installation and after-sales support.

Concentrator photovoltaic module based on surface mount technology A research group in Canada has optimized the performance of concentrator photovoltaics by using the so-called surface-mount technology for thermal management. The CPV module prototype utilizes four non-interconnected III-V germanium cells, a Fresnel lens, and a transparent glass printed-circuit board.

Five Puerto Rico reservoirs could host 596 MW of floating solar Potential sites for solar in Puerto Rico include reservoirs, brownfields, closed landfills, fossil generating plants after closure, and transmission rights of way, determined analysis by the National Renewable Energy Lab.

Cheapest source of fossil fuel generation is double the cost of utility-scale solar Solar levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) has fallen to $29 to $92 per MWh, said a report from Lazard.

List of top solar module manufacturers led by JA Solar, Trina Solar, Jinko Solar Wood Mackenzie says that JA Solar has taken first place on its list of solar panel manufacturers. Nine of the first 12 positions are held by Chinese manufacturers, seven of them could surpass 100 GW of capacity by 2027, and eight are self-sufficient in cell capacity, according to the research firm.

Largest ground-mount solar project in downtown Washington D.C. now operational The community solar installation at The Catholic University of America was built through a collaborative effort between the university and 1,200 local residents.

Flexible interconnection with curtailed output can benefit everyone, analyst says

William Driscoll — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 13:00:31 +0000

Allowing flexible interconnection for large solar projects can reduce costs and speed deployment, benefiting developers, ratepayers and utility staff, said a presenter at a North Carolina conference of utility regulators.

Duke Energy Progress has announced network upgrade costs of $470 million to interconnect about 1.9 GW of solar and solar-plus-storage projects in North Carolina and South Carolina that were proposed in response to its 2023 resource solicitation, with an average lead time until interconnection of 4.5 years.

A “significant” portion of the identified upgrades could be avoided “with minimal or zero impact to reliability” if a more flexible interconnection service that provided for occasional curtailment of solar generation could be used, said Tyler Norris, a Duke University Ph.D. candidate and former Cypress Creek Renewables executive, at a meeting of the Southeastern Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.

Under flexible interconnection, a project would be required to curtail its output when transmission is congested.

Norris said North Carolina does not currently allow flexible interconnection for state-jurisdictional projects. Yet he said flexible interconnection would yield benefits for solar developers, ratepayers, and utility staff.

Speed of interconnection is one benefit. Norris noted that Texas, where the grid operator ERCOT allows a form of flexible interconnection, has quickly added solar in recent years. Although North Carolina ranked second in utility-scale solar deployment in 2019, Texas “sort of blew past us, they blew past Florida, and now they’ve surpassed California as well.”

ERCOT’s approach to flexible interconnection, known as “connect and manage,” suits the grid operator’s energy-only electricity market, Norris has previously written, and could be adapted for use elsewhere in the U.S. where electricity markets have a capacity market alongside an energy market.

Norris said the Duke utility’s expected network upgrade costs for the 1.9 GW of projects follow an approval by the North Carolina Utilities Commission for about $600 million in network upgrades “which was precisely intended to integrate more utility-scale solar and solar-plus-storage.”

North Carolina does not permit flexible interconnection, Norris said. So the utility’s cost study did not consider the “ability to curtail those resources in real time during peaks” as a way to avoid the upgrades. Many large network upgrades that are allocated to projects in interconnection studies “may be triggered due to rare or even extremely rare contingencies,” he said.

“This isn’t to pick on Duke by any means,” he said. “I think they’re doing a great job on a lot of fronts.”

Norris plans to work with team members at Duke University to analyze the network upgrade costs for the 1.9 GW of solar and solar-plus-storage projects under a scenario in which energy-only interconnection was allowed.

Avoiding network upgrade costs through flexible interconnection would ultimately help ratepayers, Norris said. “All these costs end up going to the ratepayers. We assign them to the projects, but either it shows up for the ratepayers in the form of a higher power purchasing agreement (PPA) price, or in the form of going directly into the rate base.”

Flexible interconnection could reduce the burden on a utility too, Norris said. “We already have a lot of other transmission and network upgrades going on for other reasons,” he said, and “layering more and more” upgrades for particular projects puts “more burden on already strained utility construction teams and planning teams.”

More generally, Norris said that “we’ve already invested a huge amount” in the existing transmission network, and that “if we can get more generators on the system that don’t require more and more network upgrades, we’re making more efficient use of that expenditure we’ve already made.”

Norris noted that in the U.S. Department of Energy’s recent interconnection roadmap, “one of the key themes that came out of it was offering fast track and more flexible interconnection options as a priority solution.”

Norris expects that a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission interconnection workshop set for September 10-11 will address issues related to flexible interconnection.

U.S. commercial real estate to host VPP-connected flywheels and batteries

Blathnaid O'Dea — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 14:26:15 +0000

U.S.-based technology provider Torus has agreed to supply nearly 26 MWh of energy storage for Gardner Group’s commercial real estate portfolio. The project will integrate battery and flywheel energy storage systems (BESS, FESS) with Torus’ proprietary energy management platform.

From pv magazine ESS News site

S-based energy solutions company Torus has announced the signing of a deal with real estate developer Gardner Group to provide its proprietary BESS and FESS technologies in one of the largest commercial energy storage projects in the U.S. state of Utah.

The deal will see 26 MWh of systems installed and supported by Torus’ proprietary software platform, enabling intelligent energy management, demand response capabilities, and seamless integration with renewable energy sources and EV charging infrastructure.

The project will also leverage Torus’ participation in Rocky Mountain Power’s Wattsmart Battery program, which supports grid resilience through the integration of energy storage resources into a VPP ecosystem. The Torus VPP platform enables predictive analytics for demand response, energy arbitrage, and frequency regulation.

“We are thrilled to partner with Gardner Group on this groundbreaking project,” said Nate Walkingshaw, CEO and co-founder of Torus. “This deal demonstrates the growing demand for advanced energy storage solutions in the commercial sector. This is a significant step for energy resilience, sustainability, and cost savings across the Gardner Group portfolio.”

Installation of the project is expected to begin in the fourth quarter of this year, with the completion date estimated to be in early 2026. Once fully operational, the systems will have the capacity to store and dispatch nearly 26 MWh of energy, equivalent to powering nearly 1,000 homes for a full day.

To continue reading, please visit our new ESS News site.

A new federal transmission rule won’t help renewables projects anytime soon

William Driscoll — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 18:25:33 +0000

Although promptly deploying grid-enhancing technologies and advanced conductors could speed interconnection in the short term, a new federal transmission rule will improve interconnection only once new transmission is built, said panelists on a webinar.

A new Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) order on transmission planning will not help renewables projects connect to the transmission grid “in any sort of timeframe that would benefit” a project now awaiting interconnection, said Kat Gamache, a partner with the law firm Norton Rose Fulbright, on a webinar hosted by the firm.

FERC Commissioner Allison Clements agreed with Gamache, saying “this new transmission rule is not going to help today’s projects,” except to the extent that grid-enhancing technologies including advanced conductors “are brought into economic planning processes and reliability planning processes right away.” Doing so would be “a material improvement,” she said.

FERC Order 1920 requires transmission owners to consider these grid-enhancing technologies in developing the 20-year transmission plans that the order requires.

But Clements, while acknowledging three barriers to deploying the technologies, made the case for their prompt deployment. The first barrier is financial, she said, agreeing with a concern related by the webinar’s moderator that grid-enhancing technologies cost less than new transmission and do not add much to a utility’s rate base, whereas utilities aim to grow by adding to their rate base.

Then there are operational barriers to using grid-enhancing technologies, Clements said, because “even though many of these technologies are common around the world, they haven’t been deployed in the US.” Grid analysts have challenged the federally owned utility Bonneville Power and other transmission providers for yielding to operational barriers.

“There are also corporate barriers,” Clements said, because engineers, their group leaders and executives “are not incentivized to make more room on the grid now.”

But because FERC’s transmission rule will “take years to bear fruit,” Clements advised that “any transmission provider in a state that wants economic development, wants re-onshoring of advanced manufacturing, wants load growth for the value it brings to its state for other reasons, should be saying, ‘Let’s line up these grid-enhancing technologies, because right now they can make space on the system.’”

Turning to FERC’s role, Clements said “there’s a lot more to be done” to improve interconnection, following FERC’s Order 2023 last year to reform the interconnection processes of transmission providers.

“There’s a lot of opportunity” for standardization in the way interconnection applications are processed, she said, and for machine learning “to help us do these studies very quickly.” In addition, there are some “really interesting conversations going on” within grid operator SPP about possibly setting a standard fee per megawatt for interconnecting a generator, she said.

Clements expressed hope that a FERC workshop on September 10 and 11 to consider further improvements to interconnection will involve some of those questions.

Grid Strategies President Rob Gramlich said he expects that in the medium term, transmission regions “that actually follow through and implement” FERC’s new transmission rule will see a great improvement in interconnection speed and cost once new transmission is built.

He gave the example of the midcontinent grid operator MISO, where in late 2008 an agreement was reached to build new transmission to connect 300 MW of wind projects to the grid. Five years later, by 2013, the lines were built, “and almost instantaneously, when those lines were energized, interconnections became extremely fast and cheap” compared to previous years, he said.

Clements reminded listeners that “we have 2.6 terawatts of generation in line to hook up to the grid, and 90-plus percent of that is solar, wind and storage.”

Sunrise brief: California community solar in peril

pv magazine — Thu, 30 May 2024 12:00:46 +0000

Also on the rise: Technology-neutral proposed tax credit called ‘game-changing policy’. Less than 3% of farmland could power the Midwest. And more.

Strategies to address thermomechanical instability of perovskite solar modules A U.S. research team has investigated the thermomechanical reliability of metal halide perovskite (MHP) modules and cells in an effort to identify the best strategies to improve their stability under thermomechanical stressors. The scientists discussed, in particular, film stresses, adhesion of charge transport layers, and instability under light and heat.

Shedding light on tandem perovskite solar cell progress Perovskite tandem devices are at the front of the queue for commercialization but their characterization presents technical challenges.

Grid analysts challenge Bonneville Power’s pace in adopting advanced conductors As the White House encourages utilities to use advanced conductors to help interconnect new renewable generation, the federally-owned utility Bonneville Power is moving slowly to use the high-capacity conductors, analysts said.

Less than 3% of farmland could power the Midwest An analysis by the Center for Rural Affairs illustrates how using a small fraction of Midwest farmland for solar energy could meet significant renewable energy goals by 2050, dramatically enhancing the financial stability of farms, and challenging traditional views on land use.

Technology-neutral proposed tax credit called ‘game-changing policy’ The U.S. Treasury Department has issued further proposed guidance on the IRA, detailing a path to support a broad array of technologies–including solar– with tax credits, and clarifying many additional tax-related items in its latest guidance.

CPUC’s revised proposed decision could decimate California’s community solar market Just as an increasing number of states are implementing pro-active community solar policies, the California Public Utilities Commission is set to vote on a revised proposed decision that fails to seize on the opportunity to create a vibrant market, according to the Coalition for Community Solar Access.

DOE funding available for distributed energy resource operations software The Department of Energy announced $31 million in funding for research to improve distribution level grid operations of solar, wind, energy storage, and other inverter-based resources.

REC introduces 640 W commercial solar panel The new product contains heterojunction cell technology (HJT) with up to 22.5% efficiency.

Grid analysts challenge Bonneville Power’s pace in adopting advanced conductors

William Driscoll — Wed, 29 May 2024 14:28:46 +0000

As the White House encourages utilities to use advanced conductors to help interconnect new renewable generation, the federally-owned utility Bonneville Power is moving slowly to use the high-capacity conductors, analysts said.

Grid analysts have said that the Bonneville Power Administration, a generation and transmission utility owned by the U.S. Government that serves northwestern states, is moving too slowly to adopt advanced conductors.

Advanced conductors are high-capacity conductors that can replace existing conductors on existing transmission towers.

BPA has “begun the process” to analyze and qualify advanced conductors to increase the capacity of its grid, the utility said in January, adding that the process “can take months or years of physical testing and analyses.”

Analysts at Energy Innovation and GridLab challenged BPA’s approach and that of many other transmission providers, saying that “studying the technology itself rather than relying on real-world deployments or other peer organizations’ testing to approve the technology appears to be the status quo among transmission organizations. This ‘bottom-up’ adoption strategy considerably slows integration of many emerging technologies, not just advanced conductors.” They said BPA’s approach is commonly used at other utilities as well.

The analysts presented their views in a companion report to a technical analysis that found reconductoring could enable 764 GW of transmission-connected solar by 2035.

The U.S. Department of Energy last month flagged reconductoring as having substantial potential to increase transmission capacity, in a “liftoff” report calling for a national collaboration to deploy such technologies.

The White House this week announced a federal-state initiative involving 21 states to modernize the grid, in alignment with its effort to mobilize public and private sector leaders to upgrade 100,000 miles of transmission lines over the next five years. Substantial federal funding for reconductoring is available through three programs made possible through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL).

One indicator of reconductoring’s potential within BPA’s service area is that from 2000 to 2023, the utility completed six high-voltage projects that enabled interconnection of 7 GW of wind power and 525 MW of solar.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s recent Order 1920, which requires utilities to develop and periodically update a long-term transmission plan, requires each utility to “consider” advanced conductors when developing their plan.

Texas is the proving ground for a new way of electric grid operation

Ryan Kennedy — Tue, 28 May 2024 21:07:44 +0000

Texas is uniquely suited to adopt virtual power plant technology due to its competitive, deregulated market. Its success highlights the "perverse incentive" of vertically integrated utilities in other states to make capital expenditures without discretion to raise profits.

Texas has a unique electric grid. Its grid operation organization, ERCOT, is independent of other states and deregulated, making the state open for business for a market-based approach toward energy generation and transmission.

Texas has been a favorite among utility-scale solar PV developers for a long time, thanks to its business-friendly environment and its lack of substantial local permitting regimes. The state is also operating as a proving ground for the buildout of a more nascent industry: virtual power plants (VPP).

VPPs are defined by their distributed and connected nature. Rather than transmitting power over long distances from a centralized power plant, VPPs use smart software to control a variety of connected energy assets like rooftop residential solar, battery energy storage, smart heating and cooling, and appliances. Homeowners with eligible VPP assets are compensated for exporting power or reducing use at electricity demand events throughout the year.

A panel of experts at the RE+ Texas conference in Houston, spoke on VPP progress in the state. The discussion opened with Stuart Page, senior consultant, Department of Energy (DOE) Loans Program Office asking the audience whether they were currently enrolled in a VPP program. Only two people in a room of hundreds raised their hands. Page then asked how many in the audience had heard of VPP, and most conference attendees raised their hands.

“I bet every single one of you has an energy resource or utilization than can be controlled by an app,” said Page. “Yet none of you are enrolled, despite the fact that there are discounts with your electric bill associated with it.”

Page said that part of the issue with VPP participation is the complexity of programs. Often, they require an opt-in, where the customer must choose to join the VPP program. Page said that VPP providers should instead choose an opt-out model, where customers are automatically enrolled in the program when they buy a smart device like a thermostat or a home battery. He cited a DOE experiment where an automatic enrollment model with an opt-out option increased participation by 400%.

So why are virtual power plants important? VPPs enable intelligent, local distribution of power, sending what is needed when it is needed. VPPs typically support reducing electricity use during times of peak demand, providing a critical service that may be one of the most important low-hanging fruits to pick in the nation’s progress towards decarbonizing energy and lowering energy costs.

VPP technology has shown immediate promise in replacing natural gas “peaker plants” on grids, replacing or preventing the buildout of new resources that are among the dirtiest, most expensive, and least efficient on the grid today.

The virtual power plant commercial liftoff report released by the Department of Energy said that between 2023 and 2030, coincident peak demand on the grid will rise by about 60 GW, from roughly 740 GW to 800 GW of demand.

“At the same time, fossil assets are retiring,” said the report. “Roughly 200 GW of peak-coincident demand must be served with new resources coming online by 2030. Tripling the current scale of VPPs could address 10-20% of this peak demand. This could avoid about $10 billion in annual grid costs, and much of the money that is spent on VPPs would flow back to participating consumers.”

Texas proving ground

Even in a room full of energy industry members and experts, almost nobody attending the RE+ Texas panel session admitted to being enrolled in a VPP. The biggest barrier to adoption has been the creation and implementation of a standardized VPP program, which many states lack.

To automatically enroll customers at the point of purchase as Page suggested, a program needs to be in place to enable it. Sterling Clifford, director of government affairs, Sunnova Energy, a VPP provider shared that many state utility regulators have said VPP technology is a “long way off.”

“But it doesn’t have to be,” said Clifford. “The beginning of the process to the launch of the product was 12 months (in Texas).”

Texas already has 16 MW of energy resources and 7 MW of non-spin flexible demand enrolled in VPP programs.

Part of what enabled such a quick launch of the program was necessity. Ryan King, manager, market design, for the ERCOT said the catastrophic Winter Storm Uri in early 2021 forced the grid operator to look for new sources of reliable, dispatchable supply at the distribution level, while reducing transmission and distribution costs and increasing grid resiliency. ERCOT landed on VPPs as a solution.

Another aspect of Texas’ readiness to adopt VPP programs are its electricity-savvy customers. Texas homeowners and renters are already used to making energy decisions at home, as frequently have to shop for new electricity contracts via a Retail Electricity Provider (REP). Contracts typically last a year or two, similar to how a VPP program enables short-term enrollment.

Texas was also already uniquely well-suited to integrate a VPP program, said King, as ERCOT is already able to value an avoided kWh of electricity, or a dispatched one. This type of valuation is enabled by Texas’ deregulated market, which allow various resources to participate in the market more freely than utilities in other major markets.

Texas has only just begun its VPP enrollment and already has a combined 23 MW of flexible capacity online. King said that VPP compensation for homeowners is “the closest thing to a free lunch,” and that once further program requirements are ironed out, growth will be “exponential.”

As for other states, it may prove more difficult to roll out VPPs. While ERCOT has a transparent market where avoided costs of demand reduction and the value of distributed electricity can be directly understood, other states, like California, have a highly vertical electricity market, where cost allocation reporting is murky.

“A vertically integrated utility – we should just call it a monopoly because that is what they are – don’t always tell the truth about what the exact costs are,” said Clifford.

For Texas, a highly competitive free market have opened the door for adoption of new technologies like VPP. In vertical markets like California, “perverse incentives” may close that door.

DOE’s Stuart Page explained how VPPs lower costs both for grid operators and for ratepayers, but that investor-owned utilities have a disincentive to properly manage their spending habits.

“We have a rate-based system, which means, instead of shaving the peak of my load, we can just build out new stuff,” said Page. “If I can spend $10 billion on that, I get a rate-based profit margin on it. So, I want to spend tons of money. If I use a VPP approach or any other ‘smart’ approach, I don’t get an increase in my profits. So, there’s a perverse incentive for utilities to participate, and we have to change that.”

Bringing lithium-sulfur batteries closer to commercialization

Marija Maisch — Tue, 28 May 2024 15:02:56 +0000

Researchers at the University of South Carolina have successfully transitioned their highly-durable lithium-sulfur battery technology from coin to pouch cells and reported competent energy densities.

From pv magazine EES News

Lithium-sulfur batteries are a promising candidate for high-performance energy storage applications due to their low cost and high theoretical energy density of more than 500 Wh/kg when coupled with lithium metal anodes.

However, developing a highly durable sulfur cathode has been challenging due to the polysulfide shuttling and volume variation of sulfur that leads to chemical and mechanical degradation of the cathode during cycling.

Researchers at the University of South Carolina have made a huge step forward in addressing this issue by developing a simple electrode processing method for producing highly durable sulfur cathodes. These electrodes feature a self-structured binder confinement for sulfur particles using only commercially available sulfur, carbon black, and binder, with no additional components.

The researchers have controlled the dissolution of the binder during the slurry preparation step to form a porous binder/carbon shell structure around the sulfur particles that can entrap the soluble polysulfides and slow down the shuttling mechanism.

The sulfur cathodes achieved through this method offer an outstanding capacity retention of 74% over 1000 cycles, due to a considerable reduction in the lithium-polysulfide shuttling and active material loss. Electrodes with a high areal loading also showed excellent cyclability as well as a high capacity.

The researchers reported these results last year following the completion of the project’s first phase, in which they used coin cells. Now, they are moving to practical battery forms to determine if commercialization is possible.

The team’s current work focuses on pouch cells, which theoretically have the highest energy density since this type has the least amount of waste weight. “Pouch cells usually have lighter and thinner battery casing than the other forms, which leaves most of the volume and weight of the battery for the energy-providing components,” Chemical Engineering Assistant Professor Golareh Jalilvand says.

While the challenges of batteries grow with their size, the USC researchers have reported a fast and successful transition from coin to pouch cells. “We have achieved outstanding lithium-sulfur pouch cells with competent energy densities,” Jalilvand says. “I’m looking forward to seeing the long cycle life and durability of our pouch cells because that’s the last check mark for us and our industrial partner. With that, it might be time to say we have a lithium-sulfur battery that is ready for commercialization.”

Given the long charge-discharge time, the researchers see lithium-sulfur batteries as best suited for applications that do not require fast charging. These include heavy-duty trucks, buses, and other means of transport that need long discharge time, commonly known as milage, and can be kept overnight at charging stations. The technology also shows great potential for stationary applications such as grid-level energy storage as well as space applications.

FERC transmission rule to shore up the nation’s power grid

Anne Fischer — Tue, 14 May 2024 14:08:31 +0000

The ruling, which is being praised by industry groups, is the first time in more than a decade that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has addressed regional transmission policy as well as the need for long-term transmission planning.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) voted to shore up the nation’s transmission grid to meet growing renewable energy generation.

This is long-awaited news for the solar industry, as the U.S. Department of Energy has estimated that 54,500 GW-miles of additional within-region transmission capacity is needed for a clean grid. An improved grid aligns with the move to clean energy as supported by the Inflation Reduction Act and the Biparistisan Infrastructure Law.

The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) has been involved with this rulemaking proceeding over the past two years, advocating for reforms to the transmission planning process to account for all the benefits that clean energy offers.

“We’re pleased FERC took several steps to improve America’s outdated transmission system, including following SEIA’s recommendations requiring transmission providers to engage in long-term regional planning,” said Melissa Alfano, senior director of energy markets and counsel for SEIA.

The ruling, Order No. 1920, is the first time in more than a decade that FERC has addressed regional transmission policy as well as the need for long-term transmission planning.

“Our country is facing an unprecedented surge in demand for affordable electricity while confronting extreme weather threats to the reliability of our grid and trying to stay one step ahead of the massive technological changes we are seeing in our society,” said FERC Chairman Willie Phillips. “Our nation needs a new foundation to get badly needed new transmission planned, paid for and built. With this new rule, that starts today.”

With this ruling, transmission providers must conduct long-term planning for regional transmission facilities and determine how to pay for them. It also provides for “right sizing” transmission facilities, which amounts to expanding transmission when it needs to be replaced. Furthermore, it spells out the role of states in planning, selecting, and determining how to pay for transmission lines.

[Read The 50 states of grid modernization.]

“We need to seize this moment,” Chairman Phillips said. “Over the last dozen years, FERC has worked on five after-action reports on lessons learned from extreme weather events that caused outages that cost hundreds of lives and millions of dollars. We must get beyond these after-action reports and start planning to maintain a reliable grid that powers our entire way of life. The grid cannot wait. Our communities cannot wait. Our nation cannot wait.”

The ruling also details how FERC can exercise its authority over states if they fail to act on a transmission project outlined by the National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NETC). The Department of Energy designated ten NETCs, eight of which would facilitate transmission between grid regions; one would expand transmission within the Mid-Atlantic’s PJM grid region; and one would expand transmission in the Northern Plains.

Also included in the ruling are advanced technologies to modernize the grid, such as advanced conductors and grid-enhancing technologies.

Grid-enhancing technologies (GETs) were cited by an RMI study as potentially capable of saving project developers collectively hundreds of millions of dollars in interconnection costs compared to default network upgrades, while the project-level savings “could be the difference” that allows a developer to build a project instead of dropping out of the queue. The study notes that GETs can also be installed more quickly than other network upgrades.

“WATT applauds FERC for requiring advanced power flow control, dynamic line ratings and transmission switching in regional transmission plans,” said Julia Selker, executive director of the WATT Coalition, a group that advocates for policy that supports wide deployment of Grid-Enhancing Technologies. “These technologies are often cost-effective tools to increase grid capacity and improve flexibility to manage outages and other contingencies. Grid Enhancing Technologies will be vital to achieving the seven economic and reliability benefits in the rule, especially production cost savings, reducing grid congestion and improving performance in extreme weather.”

The energy grid in the United States was built in the 1960s and 70s and is hard pressed to handle the extreme weather events caused by climate change, let alone the renewable energy needed to meet energy goals.

“An expanded transmission system is not just a must for climate, it’s a must for running a reliable, affordable grid. The power system is changing, and this rule ensures the nation’s power grid will advance with clarity and consistency – rather than a haphazard approach that ignores the full range of benefits that new transmission can bring,” said Alfano.

Alfano noted that climate-fueled disasters pose huge challenges to the grid. “This rule will help shape a power grid that optimizes the capabilities of clean energy while prioritizing reliability and affordability,” she said. “In addition, FERC’s backstop siting rule will help ensure that no one state can veto transmission lines that are in the general interest of the nation.”

DOE proposes ten “national interest” transmission corridors

William Driscoll — Thu, 09 May 2024 11:00:52 +0000

Eight of the ten transmission corridors proposed by the U.S. Department of Energy would facilitate transmission between grid regions; one would expand transmission within the Mid-Atlantic’s PJM grid region; and one would expand transmission in the Northern Plains.

The U.S. Department of Energy has proposed ten National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors, as shown in the featured image above, and invites public comment on the potential NIETCs.

DOE previously sought industry input for the first stage of the NIETC designation process.

A NIETC designation, once final, “unlocks” federal financing and permitting tools to spur construction of transmission projects “to alleviate consumer harms,” DOE said. Such harms could result from transmission capacity constraints or congestion “currently or in the future,” and could show up as lower reliability or higher costs.

When transmission is congested, for example, some lower-cost renewable power must be curtailed instead of delivered to customers.

In terms of transmission financing, a NIETC designation can unlock public-private partnerships through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s $2.5 billion Transmission Facilitation Program, as well as direct loans through the Inflation Reduction Act’s $2 billion Transmission Facility Financing Program.

A NIETC designation also allows the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to issue permits for the siting of transmission lines within the NIETC if state siting authorities either do not have authority to site the line, or have not acted on an application for over one year, or have denied an application.

DOE has presented in a report its preliminary findings of transmission capacity constraints or congestion within each of the ten geographic areas that it proposed for NIETCs. Streamlined generator interconnection is one of the expected benefits of transmission development resulting from NIETC designation, DOE said.

One of DOE’s ten proposed NIETCs would expand transmission within the Mid-Atlantic’s PJM grid region, helping the PJM grid operator to maintain and improve reliability, lower consumer costs, and meet future generation and demand growth.

Another proposed NIETC in the Northern Plains would particularly aid Native American tribes to develop energy resources, stabilize energy costs and spur local economic development.

Those two proposed NIETCs reflect a finding in DOE’s National Transmission Needs Study that 54,500 GW-miles of within-region transmission must be added for a clean grid under “the most likely power sector future.”

Eight of the ten proposed NIETCs would facilitate transmission between grid regions, reflecting a finding in the needs study that interregional transfer capacities to transmit electricity between regions would need to increase by nearly 125 GW under the most likely power sector future.

Here are those eight proposed NIETCs and the regions they would connect:

A New York-New England NIETC would increase transmission capacity between the New York and New England grid regions.
A New York-Mid-Atlantic NIETC would increase transmission capacity between the New York and PJM grid regions and facilitate interconnection of offshore wind.
A Mid-Atlantic-Canada NIETC would connect the PJM grid region with a Canadian grid region.
A Midwest-Plains NIETC would facilitate interregional transmission among the PJM, MISO, and SPP grid regions.
A Delta-Plains NIETC would improve transmission between the SPP and MISO grid regions, and potentially connect the Eastern and Western Interconnections.
A Plains-Southwest NIETC would facilitate transmission among the WestConnect, SPP, MISO, and PJM grid regions, and potentially the CAISO grid region.
A Mountain-Plains-Southwest NIETC would link the Eastern and Western Interconnections and potentially facilitate transmission between the WestConnect and SPP grid regions.
A Mountain-Northwest NIETC would facilitate interregional transmission between the CAISO and NorthernGrid regions.

DOE will present a webinar on the current phase of the NIETC designation process on May 16.

DOE previously said it anticipates re-opening the NIETC designation process after each publication of its triennial National Transmission Needs Study or as determined by the Secretary of Energy.

Powering homes exclusively with hydrogen, solar, batteries

Lior Kahana — Tue, 07 May 2024 16:10:40 +0000

Researchers in Spain has found that combining PV power generation with fuel cells and battery storage may help homes considerably reduce their levelized cost of energy. Their simulation reportedly demonstrated homes may also become completely self-sufficient.

From pv magazine Global

A group of researchers from the University of Cantabria in Spain has conducted a pilot project for a self-sufficient home that runs exclusively on photovoltaics, batteries, and hydrogen storage.

“This plant combines PV panels and hydrogen (PVHyP) as a method of seasonal energy storage, achieving the ambitious target of accomplishing an electrically self-sufficient social housing unit throughout the year,” the group said. “To achieve this goal, a tailor-made energy management strategy (EMS) has been developed based on the state of charge of the battery pack and the energy flow within the PVHyP, ensuring that the electrical consumption of the home is always covered either through PV panels, fuel cell or battery pack.”

For their simulation, the scientists collected data from January 2022 to December 2023 for an 80 m2 social home that is located in Novales, a small village in northern Spain. Electricity bills from the years before the renewable electrification of the house showed that it consumed 2,513 kWh/year with an average daily consumption of 6.88 kWh. The average consumption in the winter and fall was over 7.3 kWh, and in summer, 5.88 kWh/day.

With these data, the scientists moved to size the energy system using software optimization and market analysis. Finally, they settled on 20 solar panels with a power of 40 W each placed on the roof, as well as four 2.4 kWh batteries. The rest of the plant was installed in a shed in the neighboring plot. That included a 35 L water tank that used tap water after purification for electrolysis and a 600 L hydrogen storage tank at 300 bar.

With the proposed system configuration, the PV panels first must supply the house load. The excess generation will then charge the battery, and once that is full, it is stored in a high-pressure storage tank in the form of hydrogen generated by an electrolyzer.

“When the solar irradiation is insufficient to cover the demand of the house, the batteries supply the necessary energy to the dwelling,” explained the academics. “If the batteries are discharged, the fuel cell generates electricity to charge the batteries from the stored hydrogen. As far as possible, the hydrogen stored in the buffer is used first to avoid the compression stage, thus increasing energy efficiency. The system and the house are connected to the grid on a self-consumption basis to sell back to the grid all the excess energy.”

According to the research group, the house demonstrated self-sufficiency, and its LCOE decreased from €0.86($0.92)/kWh to €0.34 /kWh, and the tenants saved €1,170 annually. “Almost 15,200 kWh have been saved from fossil fuels, which corresponds to approximately 2,260 kg of CO2,” emphasized the researchers.

They presented their findings in the study “Sustainable and self-sufficient social home through a combined PV‑hydrogen pilot,” published in Applied Energy.

Sunrise brief: Sunnova Energy and Stem earnings dip in Q1

pv magazine — Mon, 06 May 2024 12:28:27 +0000

Also on the rise: Groups sue FEMA and HUD to focus energy funds on distributed solar and storage. Voltaic releases battery monitoring for off-grid applications. And more.

Voltaic Systems unveils battery monitoring system for off-grid PV applications The U.S.-based PV system provider for infrastructure and industrial equipment without grid access has launched a battery health monitoring software module for its flagship Core Solar Power Systems product line.

Groups sue FEMA and HUD to focus energy funds on distributed solar and storage Two federal agencies that provide billions of dollars for energy-related projects should fund renewable energy, a number of groups have argued in two lawsuits and two rulemaking petitions.

Climate change to drive value of rooftop solar University of Michigan researchers have found that the value of rooftop solar will increase by between 5% and 15% by the mid-century across a range of U.S. cities under moderate climate change, and by up to 20% by the end of the century.

50 states of grid modernization North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center’s recent report looks at how states are doing with legislative and regulatory action related to shoring up the power grid.

Sunnova earnings dip, unrestricted cash grows as it mends balance sheet Sunnova Energy International, a residential solar, storage, and adaptive services company, announced declining revenues and an increased focus on cash generation in its Q1 2024 earnings report.

Stem dips on Q1 earnings, announces new solar and storage asset software Stem Inc, an AI-driven software provider for clean energy solutions, posted a 62% slide in revenues year-over-year while net losses grew.

50 states of grid modernization

Anne Fischer — Fri, 03 May 2024 16:14:18 +0000

North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center's recent report looks at how states are doing with legislative and regulatory action related to shoring up the power grid.

The U.S. power grid in use today was built in the 1960s and 70s and is hard pressed to handle the extreme weather events caused by climate change, let alone the renewable energy needed to meet energy goals.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, 70% of transmission lines are over 25 years old and approaching the end of their typical lifecycle. Grid upgrades that deploy modern grid technologies are sorely needed, and federal funding is available through the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnership (GRIP) program, which recently closed applications for up to $2.7 billion in DOE grant funding under a second round.

Grid modernization has been underway in some states more than others, and the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center recently released The 50 States of Grid Modernization: Q1 2024 Quarterly Report, which looks at legislative and regulatory action related to smart grid and advanced metering infrastructure, utility business model reform, regulatory reform, utility rate reform, energy storage, microgrids, and demand response.

In Q1 2024, according to the report, 49 states plus DC and Puerto Rico took a total of 567 policy and deployment actions, the most common related to policies (133), financial incentives (108), and utility business model and rate reform (93).

Five top policy developments

Maryland: Lawmakers passed the Distributed Renewable Integration and Vehicle Electrification (DRIVE) Act in Maryland that directs the Public Service Commission to develop a program for utilities to establish virtual power plant (VPP) pilots to compensate owners and aggregators of distributed energy resources for distribution system support services.

Massachusetts: Eversource, National Grid and Unitil filed final electric sector modernization plans in January 2024. The plans include a variety of programs and investments, such as VPP programs, advanced distribution management system and distributed energy resource management system investments, resilience upgrades, heat pump integration, and non-wires alternative

Connecticut: The Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) issued a set guidelines for utilities’ advanced metering infrastructure plans, including a directive to include advanced time-of-use rates and to use Green Button Connect functionality. Later in the quarter, PURA filed a straw proposal on performance incentive mechanisms (PIMs), which includes four PIMs based on non-wires solutions, equitable reliability, distributed energy resource interconnection, and avoided service terminations.

Colorado: The Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) approved guidelines and directives for VPP implementation in Xcel Energy’s service territory.

Maine: The Governor’s Energy Office in Maine released its final long-duration energy storage (LDES) study that identifies policy considerations and actions for the state to support LDES. The PUC also released a study that examines utility control or ownership of energy storage, finding that utility ownership of storage should only be allowed under certain circumstances.

Top trends

Grid-enhancing technologies can boost the use of any existing transmission system, according to a study by The Brattle Group, which looked specifically at advanced power flow control, topology optimization and dynamic line ratings. The NC State report said use of grid-enhancing technologies (GETs) is a notable trend and noted the following actions:

Virginia lawmakers enacted a bill requiring utility integrated resource plans to include a comprehensive assessment of the application of GETs and advanced conductors. In
Maine legislators enacted a bill requiring the PUC to conduct a review of available GETs that large investor-owned utilities may use to reduce investment needs in grid infrastructure.
Minnesota lawmakers introduced bills requiring utilities to file plans regarding the implementation of GETs to prevent grid congestion at the transmission level.
New York legislators introduced bills that would allow the Department of Public Service to approve requests from distribution companies to develop GETs.

Other states considering legislation initiating studies on GETs include Connecticut and New Hampshire.

Virtual power plants

VPPs give grid operators a utility-grade alternative to new generation and system buildout by automating efficiency, capacity support and offering non-wire alternatives, according to Jigar Shah, director of the U.S. Department of Energy Loan Programs Office. “By deploying grid assets more efficiently, an aggregation of distributed resources lowers the cost of power for everybody, especially VPP participants,” Shah said in an article in pv magazine USA.

According to the NC State report, a state policymakers and regulators are taking steps to develop frameworks for VPPs in their states:

Pennsylvania regulators issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking seeking input on VPPs as a potential resource for the state.
Maryland lawmakers passed a bill directing the Public Service Commission to develop a program for utilities to establish VPP pilots, with each investor-owned utility required to propose a pilot or temporary tariff by July 1, 2025.
Colorado PUC issued a decision outlining rules for VPP pilots and acquisition.
California and Hawaii regulators are also advancing expansive programs to promote VPPs.

Microgrids

Microgrids are groups of distributed energy resources, such as solar modules on a home, connected to a battery system, that can disconnect from the grid and operate independently during a power outage. The U.S. Department of Energy has a vision that 30% to 50% of electricity generation will come from distributed resources by 2035, with microgrids playing a key role in the transition.

The NC State report found that a growing number of states are evaluating the potential for microgrids to provide resilience or other benefits in their states.

Colorado Energy Office is currently developing a microgrid roadmap, which will examine how microgrids can improve grid resilience and reliability in the state.
New Hampshire lawmakers recently passed a bill requiring the state’s Department of Energy to study the potential benefits, risks and other factors of developing a microgrid framework.
Rhode Island PUC issued request for proposal for a study related to microgrid program design.
Puerto Rico Energy is examining revisions to its existing microgrid revisions.
Arizona regulators issued a decision prohibiting Arizona Public Service from providing microgrid services.

Lawmakers in California, Iowa, New Jersey, and New York also considered legislation related to microgrid studies during the quarter.

Improve transmission planning and interconnection cost allocation, says SEIA-affiliated group

William Driscoll — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 13:33:58 +0000

Federal regulators should consider specific reforms to improve transmission planning, lower interconnection costs and provide cost certainty, says a group affiliated with the Solar Energy Industries Association.

The Solar and Storage Industries Institute (SI2) has proposed two transmission interconnection reforms for consideration by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

The reform proposals are motivated by concerns that connecting new solar and storage to the transmission grid is “increasingly expensive,” while interconnection wait times and the size of the waiting list have grown.

The first of the two proposals is to develop comprehensive regional transmission planning processes that “integrate the interconnection queue” into overall transmission planning.

The second proposal offers a formula to fairly allocate transmission system buildout and local upgrade costs to interconnection customers.

SI2 is the charitable and educational arm of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

SI2 proposed that the transmission needs of generation projects that have met certain readiness milestones should be entered into the regional transmission planning process. Planners should also evaluate, SI2 said, network upgrades that have been identified multiple times in the generator interconnection process, but have not been constructed due to the withdrawal of the upgrade-triggering interconnection requests.

The proposed interconnection fee would begin with a non-refundable entry fee to enter the interconnection waiting list, or queue. That fee would be applied toward transmission system upgrades identified in the grid operator’s long-term regional transmission plan. SI2 proposed a three-part formula for calculating this fee, based on the cost of planned regional, subregional and local lines.

The second part of the interconnection fee would cover only those local transmission upgrades needed to connect the project to the grid. The paper suggested that under current practice, interconnection customers are sometimes asked to cover the costs of “a massive transmission upgrade located hundreds of miles away.”

The paper said the cost proposal is based on a planning framework in FERC’s proposed transmission planning regulation.

The cost proposal would lower overall interconnection costs and provide cost certainty, SI2 said. Higher upfront costs would reduce the number of projects entering the queue, while with “more rational” costs for interconnection-related upgrades, interconnection customers would be “less likely to withdraw from the queue and less likely to cause restudies that would delay the interconnection process.”

SI2’s paper says that FERC’s Order 2023, which requires grid operators to make certain interconnection reforms, “is a step in the right direction” to resolve transmission interconnection wait times and costs, yet “the underlying problems remain unaddressed” and “there is more work for the commission to do.”

Abigail Ross Hopper, SEIA’s president and CEO, said “We need the solutions detailed in SI2’s report to serve growing demand for electricity with reliable, low-cost solar and storage.”

Caitlin Marquis, managing director at Advanced Energy United, said the report “offers thoughtful solutions to making lasting reforms.”

The paper is titled “Game changing interconnection reform: Reshaping transmission planning and realigning incentives.”

Sunrise brief: IRS issues final guidance for clean energy tax credit transferability

pv magazine — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 12:00:01 +0000

Also on the rise: EPA releases final rules on reducing pollution from fossil-fuel plants. Born in the USA: First silicon solar cell celebrates 70th birthday. And more.

EPA releases final rules on reducing pollution from fossil-fuel plants According to the EPA, the climate and health benefits of the rule that plants must control 90% of their carbon pollution substantially outweigh the compliance costs.

U.S. plan to upgrade 100,000 miles of transmission lines in five years As the Inflation Reduction Act ramps up clean energy efforts across the U.S. the Biden administration outlines a plan to enhance transmission lines to accommodate more power.

Born in the USA: First silicon solar cell celebrates 70th birthday On April 25, 1954, U.S. researchers presented the first prototype of a usable solar module. The efficiency at that time was around 6%. A lot has happened since then.

IRS issues final guidance for clean energy tax credit transferability Rules and definitions for the transfer and sale of tax credits, which has quickly grown to a multi-billion-dollar market, largely affirm the proposed guidance from last June.

Improving solar panel recyclability with lasers The National Renewable Energy Laboratory developed a proof of concept for a method to remove polymers from solar panel manufacturing to enable more efficient recycling.

U.S. plan to upgrade 100,000 miles of transmission lines in five years

Anne Fischer — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 17:24:00 +0000

As the Inflation Reduction Act ramps up clean energy efforts across the U.S. the Biden administration outlines a plan to enhance transmission lines to accommodate more power.

As part of Earth Week announcements from the White House, President Biden announced the ambition to upgrade 100,000 miles of transmission lines over the next five years.

Funding is available through the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnership (GRIP) program, which recently closed applications for up to $2.7 billion in DOE grant funding under a second round. The intention of the program is to fund projects that will upgrade and modernize the transmission and distribution system to increase reliability and resilience to prepare the grid for extreme weather as well as to ensure delivery of affordable, clean electricity to all communities across the nation.

Last October White House Infrastructure Implementation Coordinator Mitch Landrieu and Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm announced $3.46 billion in the first round of GRIP funding, which went to 58 projects across 44 states to strengthen electric grid resilience and reliability across America. Read about the program and its recipients here.

Transmission upgrades will include deploying modern grid technologies such as high-performance conductors and dynamic line ratings that enable existing transmission lines to carry more power.

Recent research from University of California, Berkeley and the consultancy GridLab found that large-scale reconductoring, for example, can unlock renewables near the existing transmission network. The study projected that the optimal added transmission capacity by 2050, allowing for reconductoring, would be about 110,000 GW-miles with restricted buildout or about 210,000 GW-miles with unrestricted buildout. The U.S. Department of Energy has estimated that 54,500 GW-miles of additional within-region transmission capacity is needed for a clean grid.

These efforts align with the move to clean energy as supported by the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

An example of a recently completed transmission infrastructure project is the Ten West Link transmission line, which will play an important role in transmission of electricity from the 25 GW of solar, wind and geothermal permitted on public lands by 2025. The line has begun transmitting electricity and is expected to increase reliability and unlock more than 3.2 GW of capacity from solar projects.

Vice President Kamala Harris attended the ceremony marking the start of construction of the transmission line and commented on its significance.

“America is at the start of an historic transition away from fossil fuel plants that pollute our communities and toward cleaner and safer energy sources. To create this clean energy future, we must construct thousands of miles of new high-voltage transmission lines all across our country, said Harris. “All of this also creates jobs — good paying jobs, union jobs. Jobs for IBEW linemen who will build and repair these lines. Jobs for young people looking to start a career in clean energy and the clean energy economy. Jobs that will help our nation finally take on the climate crisis as the crisis that it is.”

Construction of the transmission line at its peak, will bring more than 350 jobs to the region, including more than 250 union construction jobs. As the Ten West Link facilitates new development of renewable energy and energy storage in the rapidly growing Desert Southwest region, it will bring the potential for countless additional jobs.

Sunrise brief: Petition filed to enforce antidumping tariffs on solar imports

pv magazine — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 12:00:32 +0000

Also on the rise: SunPower to close business units, cut about 26% of workforce. Reconductoring could enable 764 GW of transmission-connected solar by 2035. And more.

Petition filed to enforce antidumping tariffs on solar imports A coalition of U.S. solar manufacturers submitted a request for investigation of alleged dumping of Chinese goods in four Southeastern Asian nations responsible for roughly 80% of U.S. solar panel supply.

People on the move: Urban Solar, Kilo Power, Palmetto and more Job moves in solar, storage, cleantech, utilities and energy transition finance.

NREL updates interactive chart of solar cell efficiency The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has updated its research cell efficiency chart for a range of PV technologies.

A second solar project takes off at JFK airport TotalEnergies began construction of an onsite solar-plus-storage system, providing energy to Port Authority and Con Edison, as well as community solar for area residents.

Reconductoring could enable 764 GW of transmission-connected solar by 2035 Replacing existing transmission lines, known as conductors, with advanced conductors could enable 764 GW of transmission-connected solar by 2035 even if transmission in new corridors was limited, found a study by UC Berkeley and GridLab researchers.

RFP alert: Community choice aggregator seeks renewable energy and storage Central Coast Community Energy announces a request for proposals (RFP) for renewable energy and storage Projects in CAISO territory.

Enphase delivers revenue miss amid softened residential solar demand The company remains profitable, generating $41.8 million in free cash flow, despite a slumping market.

SunPower to close business units, cut about 26% of workforce The company announced plans to wind down its residential solar installation locations and close its direct sales unit.

Reconductoring could enable 764 GW of transmission-connected solar by 2035

William Driscoll — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 16:00:11 +0000

Replacing existing transmission lines, known as conductors, with advanced conductors could enable 764 GW of transmission-connected solar by 2035 even if transmission in new corridors was limited, found a study by UC Berkeley and GridLab researchers.

Large-scale reconductoring can “unlock” renewables near the existing transmission network, says a report from a team of researchers from University of California, Berkeley and the consultancy GridLab.

While other technologies, such as those reviewed in a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) “liftoff” report, could also enable a near-term increase in transmission capacity, the report says reconductoring with advanced conductors “offers the greatest potential to provide substantial capacity increases—up to double, within existing rights-of-way”—a finding consistent with DOE’s report. The authors say that reconductoring projects typically cost less than half the price of new lines for similar capacity increases.

A comparison of legacy conductors and advanced conductors is shown in the image below.

Advanced conductor and ACSR conductor.
Source: Energy Institute at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business

Reconductoring could enable 764 GW of transmission-connected solar by 2035 in “indicative transmission corridors” in a scenario in which the build rate of new right-of-way transmission is constrained, according to a map linked from the report.

Advanced conductors are available from U.S. manufacturers 3M, CTC Global and TS Conductor, the report notes.

DOE aims for a national collaboration to help deploy advanced conductors, energy storage and other technologies to boost grid capacity.

The authors, noting that more than 2 TW of proposed clean generation and storage resources are “stuck in interconnection queues” across the country, say that clean energy project developers face extended delays as “first, multiple interconnection studies must be conducted, and then the necessary transmission improvements must be completed.” Increasing the transmission capacity of the existing system will “unlock” much-needed capacity, they say, not only to integrate clean energy projects already queued, but also to encourage continued renewables development near existing transmission infrastructure.

Savings

Across all scenarios considered in the report, the largest system savings would result from pursuing a strategy of simultaneously reconductoring with advanced conductors and addressing barriers to new greenfield transmission. That strategy would yield cumulative savings of over $400 billion by 2050 compared to a business-as-usual case.

The authors used the ReEDS model to conduct the study, and reached additional findings beyond those they presented in a working paper last fall.

The new study projected that the optimal added transmission capacity by 2050, allowing for reconductoring, would be about 110,000 GW-miles with restricted buildout or about 210,000 GW-miles with unrestricted buildout. The U.S. Department of Energy has estimated that 54,500 GW-miles of additional within-region transmission capacity is needed for a clean grid.

The new report includes reconductoring case studies from around the world, and the report’s landing page offers a paper with policy recommendations.

The report is the fourth in a series of “2035 reports,” following a 2020 report finding that clean power from 2035 is challenging but feasible, a 2021 report showing that electric vehicles could substitute for bulk transmission at lower cost, and a report on the role of offshore wind.

The new report is titled “Reconductoring with advanced conductors can accelerate the rapid transmission expansion required for a clean grid.”

Congress urged to reform clean energy bottlenecks before 2024 election

Ryan Kennedy — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 19:32:08 +0000

Reforms to siting, permitting, and transmission were requested by a coalition of about 200 solar and energy storage companies.

A letter signed by nearly 200 solar and energy storage businesses was sent to Congress, requesting legislation to reform processes that are bottlenecks to clean energy development.

The letter calls for reforms to permitting, project siting, transmission, and public lands access for solar and storage projects. Find the letter and full list of signees here.

Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) president and chief executive officer Abigail Ross Hopper said the hundreds of billions of investment dollars depend on the ability of developers to have clean energy projects sited, permitted, and efficiency interconnected with a modern transmission system.

Wood Mackenzie said the solar industry could reach 673 GW deployed by 2034, but there is a 200 GW difference between high- and low-case solar deployment forecasts. Policy decisions weigh heavily on these outcomes, it said.

“Lawmakers in both parties understand the importance of getting new energy infrastructure built quickly and efficiently,” said Ross Hopper. “Now is the time for policy action to strengthen America’s energy industry and support local economies with jobs and private investments.”

The companies requested the following reforms:

Modernize Federal Energy Permitting: Streamline and standardize the permitting process at the federal level, while supporting environmental safeguards.
Create Project Siting Partnerships at All Levels of Government: Encourage federal, state and local authorities to work together to identify and designate appropriate sites for clean energy development, including on underutilized and disturbed lands.
Build Out Transmission Capacity: Invest in transmission planning, build out, and grid modernization efforts to maximize transmission capacity and unlock the full potential of solar energy, especially in remote regions with abundant solar resources.
Enable Administration to Reach Public Lands Goals: Simplify the process for clean energy generation and transmission projects to access public land leases while maintaining environmental conservation standards.
Foster Interagency Collaboration: Empower federal agencies with siting authority — like the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Bureau of Land Management, and Department of Energy — to create a central clearinghouse for permit applications to ensure a streamlined approval process for critical transmission infrastructure.

Interconnection queues across the United States are piling up with solar and energy storage projects ready to be developed and installed. The sluggish process is creating unprecedented bottlenecks. This is true for developer AES, which has more than 50 GW of capacity waiting to move forward.

“…these projects are ready to move forward and will generate critical economic investment and create jobs in local communities across the country, but they require swift permitting action and transmission infrastructure upgrades to ensure we can advance a clean, reliable energy future,” said Amanda Smith, vice president for external affairs, AES renewables.

Virinder Singh, vice president of regulatory and legislative affairs, EDF Renewables, said current laws are not set to enable the nation to build generation and transmission at the scale needed to support economic growth. He said that federal leadership is needed to “reach the moment.”

“A lack of transmission capacity is the biggest barrier to the continued growth of the renewable industry,” said David Mindham, director of regulatory affairs for EDP Renewables North America. “The proposed reforms will remove these barriers, creating thousands of new American manufacturing jobs and supporting local economies.”

The Department of Energy recently released a roadmap report for meeting the nation’s needs for transmission interconnection reform to support the energy transition. The report presents 35 interconnection improvement solutions developed through a DOE stakeholder engagement process launched 22 months ago, known as the Interconnection Innovation e-Xchange (i2X) program.

One of the roadmap’s “long-term” solutions is to “explore options” to allow interconnection customers to self-fund and provide their own interconnection studies, subject to transmission provider oversight, rules, and requirements. Tesla said in late 2022 that with access to grid models, the company could estimate a project’s interconnection costs with an informational study in less than two weeks, while two trade groups at that time renewed their call to allow third-party interconnection studies.

DOE aims for national collaboration to deploy advanced grid technologies

William Driscoll — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 14:00:38 +0000

Advanced conductors and energy storage are among the technologies that have substantial potential to increase transmission capacity, says a Department of Energy “liftoff” report.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) aims to spark a national collaboration to accelerate near-term deployment of advanced grid technologies.

Deploying these technologies on the existing grid could support 20-100 GW of incremental peak demand if installed individually, says a DOE report, or significantly more when installed in “strategic combinations.” If deployed “overnight,” they could help defer an estimated $5-35 billion in transmission and distribution infrastructure costs over the next five years.

The technologies and their “full deployment potential” for expanding capacity on the existing transmission and distribution grids are shown in the image below.

DOE found that advanced conductors have the greatest potential. Energy storage as a transmission and distribution asset, with a potential nearly as high, has recently “started to see greater interest,” the report says.

DOE plans to invest $10.5 billion in deployment of the technologies through its Grid Resilience & Innovation Partnerships program.

Achieving “liftoff” for the technologies within three to five years is possible, DOE said, by deploying for each technology “6-12 large operational, no regrets deployments across a diverse set of utility contexts.”

Deploying the technologies can help utilities and regulators respond to “grid pressures including rapid demand growth, extreme weather, and new energy generation connections,” DOE says.

With efficient investment and cost allocation strategies, the deployments “could happen without directly increasing costs to ratepayers,” says a DOE summary of the report.

New transmission capacity “is still critically needed,” says the report, to interconnect new generation and increase transfer capabilities between regions. Yet the advanced technologies “can help serve as a bridge” as new transmission is developed, and can be incorporated in new expansion as well.

To build industry confidence in the technologies, DOE’s first priority is to foster transparent sharing of outcomes from early deployments of the technologies, “including lessons learned from successes and failures.”

DOE also aims to “advance industry execution know-how, robust planning and investment case approaches, and economic model innovation.”

Seeing roles for grid operators, utilities, regulators, policymakers, and technology providers, DOE suggested for each group “priority actions to pursue today.”

DOE will host a webinar on the report on May 13 at 10:30 a.m. Eastern time. The 96-page report is titled “Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Innovative Grid Deployment.”

Sunrise brief: Three-decker, solar and battery powered yacht hits the water in Italy

pv magazine — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 12:15:46 +0000

Also on the rise: Allow solar developers to choose “connect and manage,” says DOE roadmap. Massachusetts city that mandates solar on new buildings celebrates latest success. And more.

Allow solar developers to choose “connect and manage,” says DOE roadmap To speed interconnection of utility-scale renewables and storage projects, a U.S. Department of Energy roadmap sets forth 35 solutions and proposes actions to implement the solutions. The roadmap was developed through a DOE stakeholder process known as i2X.

Three-decker, solar and battery powered yacht hits the water in Italy Silent Yachts launched the first Silent 62 3-Deck yacht, outfitted with 17 kWp of SunPower X400+ rigid glass solar modules and a newly enhanced 350 kWh LiFePO4 battery storage system, propelled by dual 340 kW electric motors.

Specialized EPC contractors key to smaller community solar projects Innovative financing models and supportive policies are needed to make community solar financially viable and attractive to investors.

Massachusetts city that mandates solar on new buildings celebrates latest success Watertown, Massachusetts, a city with a model energy plan, now has a Gold LEED certified building with 252 kW solar and 125 kW storage system, along with 15 EV charging ports.

Allow solar developers to choose “connect and manage,” says DOE roadmap

William Driscoll — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 13:58:22 +0000

To speed interconnection of utility-scale renewables and storage projects, a U.S. Department of Energy roadmap sets forth 35 solutions and proposes actions to implement the solutions. The roadmap was developed through a DOE stakeholder process known as i2X.

Transmission interconnection processes “need to evolve” to handle the larger number of interconnection requests seen in recent years, says a U.S. Department of Energy “roadmap” report.

The report presents 35 interconnection improvement solutions developed through a DOE stakeholder engagement process launched 22 months ago, known as the Interconnection Innovation e-Xchange (i2X) program.

DOE will have an ongoing role in implementing the solutions, it said in a news release, including facilitating solution adoption, providing funding and technical assistance, and supporting the research community.

One of the solutions presented is to “ensure” that generators have the option to elect energy-only interconnection and agree to be “re-dispatched”—that is, curtailed—as needed rather than paying for network upgrades. This approach, known as “connect and manage,” is key to speedy interconnection in Texas.

To achieve this solution, the roadmap proposes actions by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), transmission providers, and interconnection customers.

To achieve this self-funding solution, the roadmap recommended actions by FERC, transmission providers, researchers at DOE and elsewhere, and interconnection customers.

Five of the solutions relate to workforce development, and include highlighting in higher education settings “the important role of interconnection policy and practice in the clean energy transition.”

The report states target timeframes for key metrics, including a 12-month timeframe for a “completed project” to advance from the interconnection request to an interconnection agreement. Among projects that enter the third and final interconnection study phase, the targeted completion rate is 70%, compared to a recent actual percentage of 45%.

While transmission providers “play a central role” in managing and implementing interconnection process improvements, the report notes that “ideas and actions often come from other stakeholders.”

Many stakeholder groups participated in the i2X process to brainstorm and develop solutions, including interconnection customers, state agencies, federal regulators, load serving entities, equipment manufacturers, consumer advocates, equity and energy justice communities, advocacy groups, consultants, and researchers both within and outside DOE.

“Members from all these stakeholder groups should continue to participate in the implementation” of the solutions, the report said, adding that “reform is thus a group effort.”

As DOE developed the roadmap, FERC issued Order 2023, which also aims to reform interconnection. The roadmap “introduces additional ideas that support longer-term interconnection process evolution,” says the report, and its solutions “are intended to complement and support” Order 2023.

DOE will hold a webinar on the roadmap on May 8 at 1 p.m. Eastern time, focused on the roadmap’s solutions and targets.

The department’s 125-page roadmap report is titled “Transmission Interconnection Roadmap: Transforming Bulk Transmission Interconnection by 2035.”

Sunrise brief: California Supreme Court to review rooftop solar net metering

pv magazine — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 12:00:27 +0000

Also on the rise: Renewables and storage interconnection backlog grew about 30% last year. California’s electricity multi-crisis can be aided by virtual power plants. And more.

Renewables and storage interconnection backlog grew about 30% last year The wait for transmission interconnection studies constitutes a “major bottleneck” for solar, storage and wind projects, which accounted for over 95% of all active capacity awaiting studies at the end of 2023, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has reported.

S-5! unveils new mounting systems for rooftop solar S-5!, a supplier of mounting systems, plans to release two new mounting components for rooftop PV systems, including a new mount that allows for module-level power electronics to be attached directly to solar panel frames.

A guide to help homeowners understand how to go solar Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory published an open access guide to rooftop solar and battery energy storage that covers costs, incentives, policies and more.

New quantum solar cell material promises external quantum efficiency of 190% The new material consists of an heterostructure combining germanium, selenium, and tin sulfide, which also integrates atoms of zerovalent copper. It features an average photovoltaic absorption over 80% and could help photovoltaic cells break the Shockley-Queisser efficiency limit, according to its creators.

California’s electricity multi-crisis can be aided by virtual power plants By operating distributed resources like solar, batteries and demand response devices in concert, California ratepayers could be paid $500 to $1,000 per year while improving resource adequacy.

California Supreme Court to review rooftop solar net metering The state’s highest court granted review to a lawsuit challenging a “regressive” rooftop solar policy called NEM 3.0.

Renewables and storage interconnection backlog grew about 30% last year

William Driscoll — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 12:17:15 +0000

The wait for transmission interconnection studies constitutes a “major bottleneck” for solar, storage and wind projects, which accounted for over 95% of all active capacity awaiting studies at the end of 2023, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has reported.

A research report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that 1,080 GW of solar projects and about 1,030 GW of storage projects await interconnection studies, so they may connect to the transmission grid.

Solar and battery storage accounted for over 80% of new capacity entering the queues in 2023, driving a 30% increase in the waiting lists, known as queues, for interconnection studies.

Storage capacity in the queues grew more than 50% last year. Over half of the battery storage capacity in the queues is paired with some form of generation, typically solar. Wind capacity in the queues rose to 366 GW, while only 79 GW of fossil gas and 2 GW of coal capacity await interconnection studies.

The values were nearly the same as preliminary values published last month in a staff report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

The growing backlog of projects awaiting grid interconnection studies “has become a major bottleneck” for project development, the study said, as proposed projects are “mired in lengthy and uncertain” interconnection study processes. Based on past experience, the study said that “most interconnection requests are ultimately cancelled and withdrawn,” while projects that are built are taking longer on average to reach commercial operation.

Although FERC adopted major interconnection reforms in 2023, the study says most reforms “have not yet taken effect in most regions, with project developers continuing to cite grid interconnection as a leading cause of project delays and cancellations.”

The authors pointed to other project development stages beyond submitting an interconnection request, and then waiting for the grid operator to complete interconnection studies, saying that “projects must also have agreements with landowners and communities, power purchasers, equipment suppliers, and financiers, and may face transmission upgrade requirements.”

Even so, the authors said that data from the queues provides a “general indicator for mid-term trends” in power sector activity and energy transition progress.

Berkeley Lab compiled and analyzed data from the seven organized electricity markets in the U.S. known as RTOs and ISOs, and an additional 44 balancing areas outside of RTOs and ISOs, which together represent over 95% of currently installed U.S. electricity generation.

Total generation plus storage capacity in the queues at year-end 2023 equaled 2.6 terawatts, as shown in the image below, which the authors noted is about eight times larger than the interconnection queue in 2014, and more than twice the current U.S. generating capacity of 1.28 TW.

Berkeley Lab has made available a study abstract, an overview and slide deck, an interactive visualization of the queue data, interactive maps and a data file.

The study’s authors will host a webinar to describe the research and answer questions on April 23 at 1 p.m. Eastern time.

Solar on canals to test potential to conserve land and water in West

Ryan Kennedy — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 20:55:19 +0000

Three large projects in California, Utah, and Oregon will cover water reclamation facilities with solar panels, offering co-benefits for both energy production and water conservation.

Water canals in California, Utah, and Oregon are soon to be outfit with solar panels, as three projects received federal funding through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). IRA set aside $25 million for the design, study, and implementation of photovoltaics co-located with water reclamation facilities.

The three projects will receive a combined $19.5 million to support the projects, which are administered by the Bureau of Reclamation, an agency tackling the challenges of water and power management in the U.S. West.

This IRA carve-out was created with input from California Representative Jared Huffman. The program directed to study the water efficiency gains from covering canals with solar panels.

Solar on canals is a use-case for photovoltaics that is expected to come with significant co-benefits for each technology. The panels provide shade for the water resources, reducing losses from evaporation. In turn, the water cools the solar panels, reducing operating temperature, which improves the efficiency of the panels and slows degradation of the equipment.

“Deploying solar panels on our canal systems is a smart solution to our growing water and energy dilemmas – it harnesses clean energy technology to increase efficiency while reducing our carbon footprint and water loss from canal evaporation,” said Representative Huffman.

The largest of the three projects, located in California, received $15 million through the fund. The San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority will deploy floating solar arrays on the Delta-Mendota Canal. The University of California-Merced will study the project through a public-private partnership.

Researchers will deploy up to three varying floating solar technologies to assess the viability, costs, and benefits of floating solar over canals. The program will validate designs for PV on moving water and explore design and operational challenges associated with the emerging use-case.

A 2021 study conducted at the University of California, Merced and University, Santa Cruz, showed that covering the approximately 4,000 miles of public water delivery system infrastructure in California with solar panels can generate 13 GW of energy annually, equal to about one sixth of the state’s installed capacity and about half the projected new capacity needed to meet the state’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2030.

The study modeled that 63 billion gallons of water could be saved annually by covering canals, which is enough to irrigate 50,000 acres of farmland or meet the water needs of more than 2 million residents.

The two other pilot projects are in Oregon and Utah. A $2.55 million-funded project in Oregon will float solar panels on the main canal of the Deschutes Project near Bend, Oregon.

In Utah, $1.5 million in funds are diverted to a project on the Layton Canal near West Haven, Utah. The five-year demonstration project will collect data on technical capabilities and economic feasibility for deploying solar canals at large scale.

In addition to improving PV performance and reducing evaporation, solar on canals is expected to minimize canal maintenance by reducing aquatic plant growth, create land use savings and preserve agricultural lands, and reduce the energy and carbon footprint of water reclamation facilities.

Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Bureau of Reclamation is also investing $8.3 billion over five years for water infrastructure projects, including rural water, water storage, conservation and conveyance, nature-based solutions, dam safety, water purification and reuse, and desalination.

Roadmap to achieving Puerto Rico’s goal of 100% renewable energy by 2050

Anne Fischer — Mon, 01 Apr 2024 17:17:06 +0000

The report defines implementation actions, highly detailed in the PR 100 Final Report, but which are summarized into five actions from immediate to long-term to recurring.

in 2017, when back-to-back hurricanes destroyed around 80% of Puerto Rico’s electric grid and resulted in thousands of lives lost, Puerto Rico passed Act 17, a policy to transition to 100% renewable energy by 2050.

Analysis by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) found that Puerto Rico has 40GW of solar potential. NREL modeled pathways to the targets set by Puerto Rico’s Act 17: 20% renewable generation by 2022, 40% by 2025, 60% by 2040, and 100% by 2050.

NREL reported that Puerto Rico has 20 GW of utility-scale solar potential, mostly along the coasts, and 20 GW of distributed solar potential. Just 10 GW of solar could meet Puerto Rico’s needs, as estimated by Solar + Energy Storage Association (SESA) president PJ Wilson.

The potential pathways forward in the Puerto Rico Grid Resilience and Transitions to 100% Renewable Energy Study, or PR100, concluded that Puerto Rico can reach its goal of 100% renewable energy by 2050, but there is much work to be done. The researchers created a roadmap outlining near- and long-term actions necessary to move forward toward a renewable and resilient future.

“Over the past year, I’ve visited communities across Puerto Rico, listening to residents’ vision for what a cleaner and more resilient energy future could look like. Now, PR100 is ready to help make them bring those visions to life,” said Jennifer M. Granholm, U.S. Secretary of Energy.

The report identifies three scenarios.

Scenario 1 is defined as the economic adoption of distributed energy resources (DERs) based primarily on bill savings and value of backup power for building owners and Scenario 3 as the maximum deployment of DERs on all suitable rooftops. Scenario 2 lies in between, extending DER adoption to very low-income households (0%–30% of area median income) and those in remote areas who otherwise would not have bought systems. There are also variations to these scenarios, especially when it comes to utility-scale land use, as agricultural land is highly valued in Puerto Rico. There are also variations around electrical load because it’s hard to project that out to 2050.

The report defines implementation actions, which are highly detailed in the PR 100 Final Report, but which are summarized into five actions, with more detail provided in the graphic below:

Immediate actions to build a more robust electricity system and lay the foundation for high levels of renewable energy
Near-term actions to achieve 40% renewable energy while moving toward industry accepted system performance and increasing resilience
Mid-term actions to achieve 60% renewable energy to gain operating experience and be adaptive in system design
Long–term actions on the road to 100% renewable energy where effective deployment and operation of the complex system is achieved
Recurring actions to continually maintain and improve the system and associated planning processes.

The immediate actions are expected to increase system capacity by about 40% (of renewables) by making urgent repairs to the grid. Part of this step is to also incentivize customers to use batteries in a grid-interactive fashion. The Battery Emergency Demand Response Program piloted by the power company, LUMA, is an example of the start of such an effort.

As resilience is the goal of shoring up the grid and adding renewables, the report emphasizes that best practices must be implemented to ensure that the renewables operate effectively. One suggestion is to operate rooftop PV systems as microgrids, to set up virtual power plants, and to add sensing equipment across the distribution and transmission system to help identify problem areas before outages occur.

The report further identifies ongoing, recurring actions that include involving stakeholders as well as building out a workforce to support the renewable energy systems. An estimated 25,000 jobs will be required for the transition to 100% renewables in Puerto Rico, so support for the development and expansion of job training is imperative.

In summary, the report notes that with the completion of the study, it is now in the hands of those who can implement the findings. The full report can be found here.

Sunrise brief: Walmart makes big commitments to solar energy

pv magazine — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 11:44:38 +0000

Also on the rise: Maxeon claims 24.9% efficiency for IBC solar panel. Potential effect of the 2024 solar eclipse on solar energy production. And more.

Iron-based redox flow battery for grid-scale storage Researchers in the U.S. have repurposed a commonplace chemical used in water treatment facilities to develop an all-liquid, iron-based redox flow battery for large-scale energy storage. Their lab-scale battery exhibited strong cycling stability over one thousand consecutive charging cycles, while maintaining 98.7% of its original capacity.

Potential effect of the 2024 solar eclipse on solar energy production To compensate for potential loss of solar energy flowing to the grid, grid operators will have to be ready to rely on other sources to ensure grid stability, as was done during the 2017 and 2023 eclipse episodes.

Maxeon claims 24.9% efficiency for IBC solar panel Maxeon said it has achieved a 24.9% efficiency rating for a full-scale Maxeon 7 solar panel using its IBC technology. The U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) confirmed the result.

Walmart makes big commitments to solar energy The retail giant entered multiple new agreements across the U.S. with solar developers, furthering its position as a corporate leader in solar adoption.

Community solar group challenges assertions by CPUC Stating that the California Public Utilities Commission “embraces a myopic view”, CCSA comments characterize the CPUC proposed decision as misguided and misinformed, and determined it will not result in the development of community solar projects as envisioned by the legislature with the enactment of AB 2316.

1100 GW solar and 1000 GW storage now await transmission interconnection Solar, wind and battery storage accounted for nearly 95% of the capacity in transmission interconnection queues as of year-end 2023, based on preliminary data from Berkeley Lab, presented in a staff report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Sunnova becomes exclusive solar provider at Home Depot stores Over 2,000 locations will host Sunnova representatives helping customers start their inquiry into solar, storage, and home energy management.

1100 GW solar and 1000 GW storage now await transmission interconnection

William Driscoll — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 16:50:04 +0000

Solar, wind and battery storage accounted for nearly 95% of the capacity in transmission interconnection queues as of year-end 2023, based on preliminary data from Berkeley Lab, presented in a staff report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

By year-end 2023, 1086 GW of solar projects awaited transmission interconnection, along with 503 GW of standalone storage, according to preliminary data from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). The amount of storage in hybrid projects, such as solar-plus-storage projects, awaiting interconnection at year-end was estimated at 525 GW by LBNL, based on imputed values for missing data when storage capacity for hybrid projects was not reported.

The data were reported in a staff report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

LBNL’s preliminary values for all but one of the resource types awaiting interconnection are presented in the table below from the FERC staff report. The exception is hybrid storage, which FERC staff shows as 299 GW in the table, not LBNL’s preliminary 525 GW, because FERC staff excluded hybrid storage projects for which capacity was not reported.

Solar, wind, and battery storage represented nearly 95% of the total capacity in interconnection queues as of year-end 2023, the staff report said.

Pending transmission interconnection requests at year-end 2023 rose to 11,841, according to LBNL’s preliminary data, representing a 16% increase since year-end 2022 and more than a four-fold increase since year-end 2019, as shown in the table below.

The FERC staff report includes summaries of transmission plans submitted by grid operators to FERC last year, including plans for transmission that could help bring solar and storage projects online.

The transmission plan from California grid operator CAISO included 21 transmission projects at a cost of $5.5 billion to help meet the renewable generation requirements set by state regulators. Some of those projects would enable importing wind power from outside CAISO.

Mid-continent grid operator MISO planned 142 transmission projects to interconnect new generators.

The PJM grid operator stretching from Chicago to New Jersey “identified” 93 transmission projects at a cost of $180 million to support generation seeking interconnection, and “evaluated 227 supplemental projects put forward by transmission owners,” the report said, that would cost $2.4 billion.

The ERCOT grid region in Texas added the most solar of any region last year, as shown in the following chart from the report, showing capacity additions by grid region.

The geographic areas of seven of the nine grid regions referenced in the chart are shown in the map below. The other two regions are the “SERC region,” which is the SERC Reliability Corporation (SERC) area in the Southeast, and the “WECC* region,” which is the Western Electricity Coordinating Council area in the Western states without California’s CAISO region.

The CAISO and ERCOT grid regions account for most of the growth in transmission-connected batteries in the past three years, as shown in the following chart from the report.

Potential effect of the 2024 solar eclipse on solar energy production

Anne Fischer — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 15:14:19 +0000

To compensate for potential loss of solar energy flowing to the grid, grid operators will have to be ready to rely on other sources to ensure grid stability, as was done during the 2017 and 2023 eclipse episodes.

On April 8, 2024, a solar eclipse will start on Mexico’s Pacific coast around 11:07 a.m. PDT, traveling across parts of the U.S. and Canada until 5:19 p.m. EDT. Because the sky will darken completely in the path of totality for up to six minutes, forecasters are looking at the potential effect on solar energy generation.

The last eclipse took place in the U.S. in 2017, and didn’t have much effect on solar energy production, however, solar contributed only 1.3% to the electrical grid at that time, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The EIA estimates that solar will provide 6% of U.S. electricity generation this year—a significant increase over 2017, and enough to cause some concern about the eclipse effect.

Solcast, a solar modeling and forecasting company owned by DNV, reported that the impact on solar generation across the U.S. could be greater than any previous eclipse due to the increased solar power generation.

Solcast used its clear-sky irradiance modeling, assuming no presence of clouds or smoke. Due to ongoing growth in national solar capacity, the grid impact of such major solar events is increasing, and this eclipse will have greater impact on power generation than previous eclipses. The company forecasts that the overall effects of the eclipse will cost as much as 16% of daily total clear sky irradiance in some areas.

Grid operators are preparing for a worst-case scenario, which would be a perfectly sunny day when solar would normally be feeding steadily into the grid. In areas of in the path of totality, solar generation will decrease and then be cut to zero, only to ramp back up again a few minutes later.

According to Solcast, the maximum duration will be over 90 minutes of impacted generation and a total loss of up to six minutes. The effect across the country will be a faster “ramp rate” than normal, which is the rate at which solar generation decreases and then picks back up again.

Across all grids, Solcast estimates calculated maximum losses are up to 39.9 GWh, of which 16.2 GWh will be lost from household rooftop solar. “Whilst it’s too early to predict cloud impacts, the effects of this eclipse will be significant on solar generation across the country,” said Dr. Hugh Cutcher, lead Data Scientist at Solcast.

Texas utility ERCOT, for example, is watching the event, as it provides power to 90% of the state and the state’s grid will be affected by the eclipse from 12:10 p.m. to 3:10 p.m. CDT, or during peak production hours. According to Solcast, ERCOT could experience a loss of nearly 11% of normal generation.

ERCOT posted on X that it is “working on forecasting models to reflect reduced solar power production (similar to a sunset and sunrise in the middle of the day) and does not expect any grid reliability concerns during the eclipse.”

Learning from the past

Looking back at the 2017 eclipse that obscured the sun for 76% of Northern California and 62% of Southern California on August 17, the EIA had estimated that more than 21 GW of installed photovoltaic (PV) systems would be affected. Utilities expected that production from solar plants would fall nearly 66%, with a sharp down ramp followed by an accelerated up ramp. To reduce “strain” on the electric grid, the California Public Utilities Commission President at the time urged residents to cut energy use between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. on that day.

Because the ramping down and up had little deleterious effect, a call to curb electrical use is not likely to happen with the 2024 eclipse. In fact, during the 2017 eclipse, which also affected Georgia, Georgia Power “registered barely a blip”. Georgia Power had livestreamed the eclipse and watched solar power dip significantly for the three minutes of the eclipse’s totality and yet there was no failure to the grid.