Q1 Storage Grows. The acceleration in pipeline, backlog and construction within energy storage is real. With 2020 showing the signs of a grid looking for additional ancillary services and consumers adding behind the meter storage, 2021 continued to build on this with rapid expansion of generation+ and stand alone storage. The Texas winter storm in February showed the need for frequency regulation which is likely to be seen again this summer in western states suffering from record droughts.
Report On Solar Forecast. kWh Analytics and 12 contributors published the Solar Risk Assessment report which shows that the P99 estimates for production (P99 meaning that this should be accurate 99% of the time) are not often actually modeled accurately. The report also goes into detail about the degradation estimates for modules and the issues that are affecting the module quality.
Green Hydrogen Targets. Los Angeles and the Department of Energy made news with green hydrogen yesterday. After a decade of targeting record solar costs which were surpassed ahead of schedule, DOE is taking their talents to hydrogen. A note of history, my first solar module supplier was Uni-Solar, a division of Energy Conversion Devices and one of their science project divisions was solid state hydrogen fuel storage for the automotive sector and the corresponding fueling systems. Like many items at ECD, I don’t think this was every commercialized but a note of intersection for our readers.
Soft Costs. It’s shaping up to be a big summer for soft cost reduction with the launch of SolarAPP and with continued innovation from the leading solar software companies. OpenSolar, today announced a partnership with the largest US design and engineering firm GreenLancer, connecting OpenSolar’s highly regarded 3D design and sales toolkit with the on-demand planset generation service reportedly used by over 5,000 contractors. With OpenSolar bringing experience from its users in over 100 countries, Birchy and the new US team I know are focused on supporting US installers to drive down costs (Australia remember is at $1.10 per W residential cost all in, with 25% solar penetration). They launched their ‘Opportunity Wide Open’ summer series today, in which they’ll share a range of resources and tips to help solar contractors reduce cost and scale. There will be a lot of approaches but good to see partnerships in technology creating savings for the solar community.
- Solar Power World: Q1 energy storage deployments increase 252% over last year
- PV-Tech: Built solar assets are ‘chronically underperforming’ and modules degrading faster than expected, research finds
- Axios: White House vows new moves to shore up battery supply chain
- Politico: Biden ends infrastructure talks with Senate GOP, starts engaging bipartisan group
- Utility Dive: Colorado legislators direct all transmission utilities to join an organized wholesale market by 2030
- Reuters: Tesla veteran and trucking chief leaves company
- Canary Media: Los Angeles plans to jump-start a green hydrogen market in the US
- PV-Magazine: TVA releases RFP for 200 MW of new solar + storage and retrofits
Opinion
Best, Yann