 | | Greentech Media, the source that brings you daily news, market research, and industry events, invites you to take advantage of the following complimentary white papers, videos, reports, and more from across the solar industry in our Resource Center. |
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| | | GTM Research estimates that the U.S. energy storage market could be a $2 billion market by 2020. Many states are examining or radically changing their net metering and energy policies, and smart installers are thinking about adding storage offerings to their portfolios. What’s missing is the roadmap to get there. Enphase has put together an easy-to-read guide that takes a look at the eight questions residential installers should be asking themselves in order to help their customers prepare to add energy storage to their PV and meet the growing demand for fully integrated energy management solutions. | | |
| | | Solar power plants have taken their place alongside coal, natural gas, nuclear, and wind as legitimate and valuable generation resources. Solar comprised 29.4% of new electric generating capacity in the U.S. in 2015, exceeding the total for natural gas for the first time. The acceptance of solar by utilities has happened seemingly overnight, moving from an annual utility-scale installed capacity of 1.8 GW in 2012 to 4.2 GW in 2015. Solar is following wind power by a few years in its meteoric path to volume, and has the opportunity to avoid the difficult early stage lessons that wind and nuclear industries had to experience the hard way. The methods and roadmap to reduce long term power plant risk is clear: test new technologies before deploying in volume, establish consistent industry standards for structural design, and utilize well established technical predictive tools to evaluate and account for long term maintenance costs. Failed companies and impaired project assets which act as a brake on industry growth can be easily prevented. | | |
| | | String inverters are becoming the most common style of inverter used with PV power systems ranging from 500kW to 20MW. The goal of good system designers is to construct systems that maximize overall performance, while keeping the inverters operating within their design limits. This paper is a very clear and easy explanation of the best ways to select string sizes as well as the optimum DC to AC ratios for the Sungrow string inverters. Understanding the relationship between the string voltage, MPPT operations within the inverter, and how to take advantage of the 110% “overload” capacity will help maximize both system performance and the return on investment for systems that properly employ Sungrow string inverters. | | |
| | DNV GL (formerly PV Evolution Labs), a global firm that delivers world-renowned testing, certification and advisory services to the entire energy value chain, is proud to present the 2016 PV Module Reliability Scorecard which provides unparalleled technical comparisons of PV module reliability. With full-life field data more than twenty years away and without access to publicly available data comparing long-term module reliability by vendor, how can buyers and investors factor quality into their procurement discussions?
Over the past few years independent lab data has established a critical role in evaluating PV module quality and long term reliability. DNV GL’s PV module testing lab, founded in 2010, was the first lab to offer PV equipment testing services focused at the downstream market (banks, developers, IPPs, etc.). The PVEL-GTM PV Module Reliability Scorecard aims to address the lack of publicly available long-term PV module data. The evaluation includes environmental testing that goes beyond traditional module certification testing. With its supplier-specific performance analysis, the Scorecard can help investors and developers generate quality-backed procurement strategies to ensure long-term project viability. | | |
| FEATURED VIDEOS | | | | Solar is going mainstream, and energy storage is not far behind, thanks to changing regulatory environments and new use cases for solar + storage. Enphase is helping installers prepare for storage by offering them tools to educate their customers about how they consume energy, why storage may make sense as their local rates and regulations evolve, and what to do today to be ready for storage in the future. This will enable their customers to maximize the value of their PV in the future by adding storage when it makes sense to do so. | | |
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