Viewing posts tagged "Pv"

Solar for Elephants, Cheetahs and Lions

African elephants, Ethiopian wolves, Andean cats and cheetahs are on the run. Habitat loss, encroaching human populations, disease and pollution are threatening their existence.  Do you want your or your children's generation to be the last to know these creatures in the wild? To let them go the way of the thylacine?

If you're reading this website you are likely passionate about green technology. The markets are enormous and growing and there is the potential to make lots of money. Investors like Ira Ehrenpreis of Technology Partners have tried for years to decouple greentech from its hippie, save-the-world roots. Ira has long insisted that the green in greentech is about greenbacks, not about vegan, yoga-practicing, tree-sitting, save the whales, kill the seals, recycling, granola-crunching wiccans.

Sorry Ira. Time to help save the world. At least in today's blog. We'll return to making money tomorrow.

The Wildlife Conservation Network works to protect endangered species and preserve their natural habitats. The organization supports innovative strategies for people and wildlife to co-exist and thrive. The WCN has a solar project, and it needs donations of solar equipment.

Dedicated conservationists all over the globe are studying species in decline and trying to learn enough to save them. They live and work in extreme environments and they need electricity to run their camps, power their communications and just keep their modest facilities in repair.

The WCN Solar Project designs, assembles and ships solar electric systems to conservation projects in the field. By providing a reliable source of energy for everything from lights and laptop computers to GPS systems, the Solar Project is making a real impact on critical efforts to protect endangered species. They are using this electricity to conduct cutting edge research like tracking elephants in real-time via GPS, powering VSAT computer links at 15,000 feet in Ethiopia, and many other state-of-the-art programs.

Many conservationist camps get power from diesel generators or in some cases off of their jeep battery. Try getting barrels of diesel fuel to 14,300 feet elevation in Ethiopia on a predictable schedule. How are you going to refill your lead acid batteries with distilled water in the bush in Botswana?

Solar power is an obvious solution to these problems. Solar provides electrical power but these conservationist camps are also beginning to work with solar cookers, solar water pumps, and solar water purification.  Less obvious is how a shoestring outfit like the WCN is going to afford them (even with a plunging PV cell ASP).

The Wildlife Conservation Network's solar project is also on the cutting edge of efficient green lighting – illuminating their camps with solid state lighting donated by startup Lumiette, a flat-panel florescent lighting company we covered here. That's right – donated lighting and donated solar. BP Solar has already donated 300 solar panels, the appropriately named Outback Power has donated off-grid inverters, Lumiette has provided lighting, MK Batteries has provided L16 deep-cycle batteries and Beronio Lumber has donated plywood for shipping the equipment.

In the words of solar power recipient Dr. Laurence Frank of Living with Lions in Kenya: “It works – the project is lit up, the satellite-internet system is working, and I don’t hear a generator!”

For Rebecca Klein of Cheetah Conservation Botswana: “It was very exciting to turn on the light switch for the first time and know that the energy making it all possible is completely sustainably produced.” 

Founder of the WCN Solar Project, Stephen Gold commented: "You need to think about everything that could possibly go wrong – it's kind of like going to the moon. You have to bring along everything – nuts, bolts, wiring, plugs, spares, instruction manuals."

If you're interested in further details you can visit these sites. One-hundred percent of any donation can be designated to the conservation of a specific species.

• Elephants               

• Lions                      

• Ethiopian Wolves  (only a few hundred remain)

• Cheetahs                

• Snow Leopards            

• Small Cats              

• Painted Dogs  (only 3,000 remain)

• Predator conservation  

WCN is having a Wildlife Conservation Expo and Garden Party on October 3 to 4 in San Francisco where you can hear conservation heroes from across the globe, including Dr. Jane Goodall, share inspiring stories about the endangered animals they work to protect and how you can get involved.

So – come on, Suntech (Andrew, cowboy up, it's not like we need custom sizes), SunPower (Julie – who is the contact at SunPower for a community project like this?), Sanyo, SMA, Q-Cells, Enphase et al. The organization also accepts cash donations. If you'd like to donate – contact the organization or contact me and I will get you to the right people. (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

SunPower: How Important Is High Efficiency in PV? (Updated)

SunPower's Doug Rose, the senior director of technology strategy, presented at the Silicon Valley PV Society in a talk titled, "Technology and Economics of High Efficiency c-Si PV." Of course, the thrust of the talk was the strength of SunPower's high-efficiency solar cells and panels, and the impact of efficiency on the cost and payback of a solar system.

The high efficiency of SunPower's solar cell stems in most part from its back-contact technology – a technology pioneered by founder Dick Swanson in the early 1980s at Stanford with low-cost manufacturing breakthroughs in 2001. The back contact design avoids gridlines on the front of the cell so there's no metal obscuring the cell and therefore more light gets converted to power. According to Rose, other design advantages are gained from the back-contact architecture – it allows better optimization of the front surface through texturing, an optimized backside mirror, localized contacts, and obviously backside gridlines.

The all back-contact cells allow SunPower to get to median production efficiency of 22 percent at the cell level. And while they're at it – cell thicknesses in the 150 micron range at about 6 grams of silicon per watt.

Rose raised the question: "How can high efficiency cells be cost effective? You're not using the same platform as everyone else." The response was: "Sunpower spends a little more in cell processing to deliver savings across the value chain."

That's the value proposition of high efficiency cells. The cells are more expensive but cost savings are realized all down the line. 

So how much exactly is this "efficiency bonus?"

According to research performed by crack Greentech Research analyst Shyam Mehta – gains in efficiency drive cost reductions at all steps of manufacturing on a $/W basis, from feedstock cost to module conversion – a 1 percent improvement in efficiency leads to a 5 percent to 7 percent decrease in fully loaded module cost. (Shyam's most recent report is on PV Manufacturing in the US and can be found here). His efficiency thesis is charted below:

In a solar market where prices are plunging, margins are crumbling and market consolidation is on the horizon – how much of a premium can SunPower command for its high-end product? A banker friend believes the dollar per watt premium is only 10 percent to 20 percent over conventional silicon or thin film PV.  With SunPower at a less than $2 per Watt module price in the fourth quarter of 2009 and some c-Si vendors below $1.50 per Watt – can SunPower command a 35 percent premium?

SunPower believes it can. My banker friend says no.

Here are some of the benefits of higher efficiency and the SunPower cell structure:

• Lower area-related costs
• Reduced installation costs
• Reduced shipping costs
• Reduced Balance of Plant (BOP) costs
• Allows more Watts in area-constrained sites, which reduces the $/W cost of project costs such as sales, permitting, design, etc.
• Delivers more energy per rated watt because of a better temperature coefficient, low light performance, broad spectral response, no LID

All factors resulting in a lower LCOE.

A Very Few Words on LCOE

A simplified formula for Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) is:

LCOE = Panel cost + BoP cost + O&M costs / Sunlight collection * Conversion efficiency

But, unfortunately it's not really that simple.  SunPower has detailed calculations and displayed the many factors influencing LCOE in its presentation. NREL has its own byzantine formula for LCOE.

An accurate measure of LCOE will have to include:

• Initial investment
• Depreciation tax
• Annual costs
• System residual value
• System energy production

And LCOE calculations have a very high sensitivity to certain input variables such as:

• Annual panel degradation
• Differences in annual discount rate / cost of capital
• System life (inverter replacement, etc.)
• Annual O&M

The major contributors to LCOE are:

• Capital costs
• Modiule $/W
• Area related BoS
• Electrical BoS
• Project related costs

"If someone says the LCOE of my technology is x cents per kilowatt-hour, it still doesn't tell you a lot," said Rose.

Differentiation and Branding in a Commodifying Market

A healthy cost structure, a good balance sheet, and the right level of vertical integration are what will distinguish winners from losers in the coming solar shakeout. Differentiation is going to help as well. And SunPower has that technical differentiation by virtue of the highest efficiency commercial solar product – a 22 percent median efficiency in 2006 looking for over 23 percent in its Gen3 cells. Combined with itss one-axis trackers which increase capacity factor by about 30 percent to match energy production with summer load, an important point for utilities – SunPower has some of the crucial ingredients for survival in the demand-constrained solar landscape.

Single axis tracking is a tremendous lever to reduce the LCOE of power plant, and to deliver significantly more power when the utility companies most want it (late afternoon in summer).

Of further interest in the differentiation department is SunPower's recent plunge into consumer branding of its panels. Ride a bus in San Francsisco and you'll see a SunPower-branding consumer ad campaign. 

Three questions for our readers:

• Do consumers care which brand of solar panel they're buying?
• What is the real value, the real premium for high efficiency?
• And contrarily – what is the penalty for low efficiency?  Where does 6 percent to 8 percent efficient a-Si or OSC fit into the solar landscape?  Or does it?

We welcome your thoughts.

SunPower: How Important Is High Efficiency in PV?

SunPower's Doug Rose, the senior director of technology strategy, presented at the Silicon Valley PV Society last week in a talk titled, "Technology and Economics of High Efficiency c-Si PV." Of course, the thrust of the talk was the strength of SunPower's high-efficiency solar cells and panels, and the impact of efficiency on the cost and payback of a solar system.

The high efficiency of SunPower's solar cell stems in most part from its back-contact technology – a technology pioneered by founder Dick Swanson in the early 1980s at Stanford with low-cost manufacturing breakthroughs in 2001. The back contact design avoids gridlines on the front of the cell so there's no metal obscuring the cell and therefore more light gets converted to power. According to Rose, other design advantages are gained from the back-contact architecture – it allows better optimization of the front surface through texturing, an optimized backside mirror, localized contacts, and obviously backside gridlines.

The all back-contact cells allow SunPower to get to median production efficiency of 22 percent at the cell level. And while they're at it – cell thicknesses in the 150 micron range at about 6 grams of silicon per watt.

Rose raised the question: "How can high efficiency cells be cost effective? You're not using the same platform as everyone else." The response was: "Sunpower spends a little more in cell processing to deliver savings across the value chain."

That's the value proposition of high efficiency cells. The cells are more expensive but cost savings are realized all down the line. 

So how much exactly is this "efficiency bonus?"

According to research performed by crack Greentech Research analyst Shyam Mehta – gains in efficiency drive cost reductions at all steps of manufacturing on a $/W basis, from feedstock cost to module conversion – a 1 percent improvement in efficiency leads to a 5 percent to 7 percent decrease in fully loaded module cost. (Shyam's most recent report is on PV Manufacturing in the US and can be found here). His efficiency thesis is charted below:

In a solar market where prices are plunging, margins are crumbling and market consolidation is on the horizon – how much of a premium can SunPower command for its high-end product? A banker friend believes the dollar per watt premium is only 10 percent to 20 percent over conventional silicon or thin film PV.  With SunPower at a less than $2 per Watt module price in the fourth quarter of 2009 and some c-Si vendors below $1.50 per Watt – can SunPower command a 35 percent premium?

SunPower believes it can. My banker friend says no.

Here are some of the benefits of higher efficiency:

• Lower area-related costs
• Reduced installation costs
• Reduced shipping costs
• Reduced Balance of Plant (BOP) costs
• Optimized for area constrained roofs or sites
• SunPower's product has a better temperature coefficient, tighter distribution and better low-light performance

All factors resulting in a lower LCOE.

A Very Few Words on LCOE

A simplified formula for Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) is:

LCOE = Panel cost + BoP cost + O&M costs / Sunlight collection * Conversion efficiency

But, unfortunately it's not really that simple.  SunPower has detailed calculations and displayed the many factors influencing LCOE in its presentation. NREL has its own byzantine formula for LCOE.

An accurate measure of LCOE will have to include:

• Initial investment
• Depreciation tax
• Annual costs
• System residual value
• System energy production

And LCOE calculations have a very high sensitivity to certain input variables such as:

• Annual panel degradation
• Differences in annual discount rate / cost of capital
• System life (inverter replacement, etc.)
• Annual O&M

The major contributors to LCOE are:

• Capital costs
• Modiule $/W
• Area related BPS
• Electrical BPS
• Project related costs

"If someone says the LCOE of my technology is x cents per kilowatt-hour, it still doesn't tell you a lot," said Rose.

Differentiation and Branding in a Commodifying Market

A healthy cost structure, a good balance sheet, and the right level of vertical integration are what will distinguish winners from losers in the coming solar shakeout. Differentiation is going to help as well. And SunPower has that technical differentiation by virtue of the highest efficiency commercial solar product – a 22 percent median efficiency in 2006 looking for over 23 percent in its Gen3 cells. Combined with itss one-axis trackers which increase capacity factor by about 30 percent to match energy production with summer load, an important point for utilities – SunPower has some of the crucial ingredients for survival in the demand-constrained solar landscape.

Of further interest in the differentiation department is SunPower's recent plunge into consumer branding of its panels. Ride a bus in San Francsisco and you'll see a SunPower-branding consumer ad campaign. 

Three questions for our readers:

• Do consumers care which brand of solar panel they're buying?
• What is the real value, the real premium for high efficiency?
• And contrarily – what is the penalty for low efficiency?  Where does 6 percent to 8 percent efficient a-Si or OSC fit into the solar landscape?  Or does it?

We welcome your thoughts.

Direct Grid: Another PV Microinverter Company

Yikes. Another microinverter company.  It's getting crowded in here.

Direct Grid Technologies of Ronkonkoma, N.Y., a subsidiary of Island Technology has introduced a microinverter for the photovoltaic market. The mother company, Island Technology, has a heritage of working with utilities in the Northeast such as Con Edison in monitoring and control equipment.

I spoke with Louis Squeo, the Director of Sales of Marketing.

"We saw some shortcomings in the microinverter arena," said Squeo. "Some of the microinverters out there are low wattage – 170 to 190 watts. Our offerings are in excess in 200 watts, one 200 watts and one 300 watts version with room for more."

This high wattage target raises the question of what solar panels they're going after. And the answer according to Squeo is "thin film." The company is going after the large format amorphous silicon thin-film panels from Signet Solar, one of which is rated at 340 watts.  According to Squeo: "We have been engaged with Signet Solar for a few months and one of the officers of the company is in Dresden as we speak." (The Signet Solar factory is in Dresden.)

Microinverters, as we've covered many times, convey a number of advantages to solar installations. By individuating the panels – maximum power point tracking is optimized for each panel, losses to to shading, soiling, and panel mismatch are reduced and overall system voltages are lowered. Depending on who you ask – there are potential reliability advantages.

Direct Grid uses a closed loop planar MOSFET – allowing sophisticated digital control, and claims that the sine wave created by their inverter better matches the utility AC line. 

Squeo foresees a future of do-it-yourself solar – where the consumer can buy an AC solar panel and install and connect that unit by themselves.

According to an optimistic note in their press release, shipments are "expected in the fourth quarter 2009."

Direct Grid joins the growing list of microinverter companies. Only EnPhase is shipping in commercial volumes – it has shipped over 50,000 units since last August. And Petra Solar which recently publicized a large contract with New Jersey's largest utility, PSE&G, is alleged to start shipments any day now.
 
Here's an updated list of microinverter firms:

• Accurate Solar
• Azuray
• Direct Grid
• Enecsys
• EnPhase Energy
• GreenRay Solar
• Larankelo
• Petra Solar
• SolarBridge (formerly SmartSpark)

The question is: How many microinverter companies can the market bear?

More details in the GTI Report: The Coming Disruption in the PV Inverter Market.

eIQ Unstealths: Another Entrant in PV Balance of System

Until recently, the electronics used in PV systems – inverters and Balance of System (BOS) have been an overlooked and underinvested part of the solar ecosystem, despite being a more than $2.2 billion market.

But in the last two years, there has been a surge in investment and entrepreneurial activity in solar BoS. We have listed all of the companies in this sub-sector here.

eIQ Energy, a startup in this market, founded in 2007 with a staff of 25 located in San Jose, Calif. just emerged from stealth today. The firm falls into the distributed maximum power point tracking camp (as opposed to the microinverter camp) and has a new slant on the distributed electronics angle.
 
I spoke with CEO Oliver Janssen, CTO Gene Krzywinski, and VP of Business Development Michael Lamb. "It's important to differentiate our solution," said Janssen. "Like the microinverters and distributed MPPT firms – we have distributed MPPT and performance monitoring."  But the CEO claims that their difference is that they "enable a truly parallel architecture – the panels do not have to be connected in series and you no longer have to design a string." 

Greentech Media has covered the advantages of distributed MPPT before – amongst the many benefits are reduced loss due to shadowing, soiling, or panel mismatch.  It enables differing roof pitches, incremental additions to the system, and provides design and safety advantages.

"We are making each panel do a DC boost onto a bus," said CTO Krzywinski. The eIQ system uses a distributed "vBoost" module – a small DC-to-DC converter that attaches to one or more panels in an array and provides maximum power point tracking while also stepping up panel output voltage to a constant level and creating a bus architecture. The company claims that its architecture enables the connection of unprecedented numbers of panels on a single cable run – up to more than 100 thin-film panels. 

According to the company – balance of system components (cabling, combiner boxes, racks, and design and installation fees) account for 25 percent to 40 percent of an array’s per-watt cost – and represent a substantial opportunity for reduction in up-front expenditures.

"There is substantial cost savings in optimizing the power capacity of the copper plant,  you could connect one hundred or more panels per cable run with a significant savings in the BoS – wiring, combiner boxes, and labor," said VP Mike Lamb.  To make installation faster and potentially less expensive, vBoost modules include an integrated wiring harness with snap-together connectors, eliminating the need for extensive on-site wiring.

"Those savings will more than offset the cost of our system," said Lamb, adding, "Though incremental power boost is one of the benefits of our solution – we are not relying on incremental energy harvest to offset the cost of our system." 

The company's main customer interactions are with installers and PPA providers (as opposed to module manufacturers). "We are installing small commercial beta installations," Janssen noted, adding, "We believe we have a compelling value proposition for commercial applications."
 
eIQ's modules work with industry-standard central inverters to which the eIQ system provides consistent and steady voltages, allowing the inverter to operate in its most efficient range with maximum reliability.

The investment climate is changing – the once stagnant inverter and balance of plant market is being shaken up by VC investment and entrepreneurial innovation. In addition to being a sector with room for technical innovation and performance enhancement, the inverter market is also more capital efficient than the solar panel manufacturing sector. And capital efficiency is this year’s VC mantra.

eIQ could be one of those capital efficient game-changers. The firm joins SolarEdge, Tigo Energy, and National Senmiconductor as one of the competitors in the distributed MPPT sector and S.E.T. in the parallel architecture field. EnPhase's microinverters remain the dominant player so far in the distributed electronics field with more than 50,000 units shipped since last August.

More details in the GTI Report: The Coming Disruption in the PV Inverter Market.