[amor de cosmos]

Are We Halfway to Market Dominance for Solar?
Solar is now around 1 percent of global electricity generation. But that might mean we’re further along than you’d think.
Tam Hunt
April 11, 2014

Solar power is on a tear. Cumulative solar photovoltaic electricity production is about to reach 1 percent of total global electricity production, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency.

In just a decade, solar power has gone from being a fringe technology for greenies to an almost-mainstream source of power, due to its increasing cost-effectiveness in many countries around the world. This is a remarkable evolution and demonstrates well why CitiGroup recently stated that the “age of renewables” is upon us.

I’m going to go even further in this article, however, and argue, as I did recently with respect to electric vehicles, that this 1 percent of global solar penetration is far more important than you might think.

Only 1 percent, you say? That’s tiny. But that 1 percent is actually halfway to the goal of market dominance when we consider recent growth rates and the likely growth rate in the future. I’ll explain below.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articl...ance-for-solar

Solar, Sky Cameras and Hard Math: A New Way to Integrate PV on the Grid
Power Analytics’ new software offers a unique power flow platform for solar, storage and microgrids.
Jeff St. John
April 11, 2014

Insanely complex math, and never enough data -- that’s the conundrum in trying to model the ebb and flow of solar power and energy storage on the grid edge.

Large-scale transmission systems are well modeled. But the majority of the grid below the substation provides little to work with beyond original engineering specs -- and hopefully, up-to-date maintenance and replacement records -- to turn into useful data for software platforms.

That makes it very difficult to capture or predict voltage anomalies, reactive power problems and other disruptions coming from customer-side energy assets like rooftop solar. It also makes supply-demand forecasting to optimize the interplay of solar power, energy storage and grid interconnection requirements almost impossible. Even so, with smart meters, grid sensors and advanced inverters starting to populate the grid edge, there are new tools that could make this micro-scale grid modeling a truly useful tool.

Power Analytics, a supplier of complex power flow modeling software for customers like the U.S. Navy and the FAA, believes its new platform is ready to take on the challenge. It’s called Paladin PV (PDF), the newest piece of the San Diego, Calif.-based company’s Paladin software suite. According to Kevin Meagher, Power Analytics’ CTO, it has the “potential to significantly change the landscape” for distributed solar’s integration into the grid.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articl...cked-microgrid

Could First Solar’s Thin Film Beat Silicon PV on Efficiency?
First Solar’s ambitious roadmap sees the company exceeding standard silicon panel efficiency by the end of 2015, according to GTM Research’s PV Pulse.
Mike Munsell
April 11, 2014

Conventional wisdom holds that thin-film PV module efficiencies will always be below those of crystalline-silicon technologies. That has been the case to this day.

However, according to GTM Research's newly launched monthly data service PV Pulse, successful execution of First Solar's ambitious roadmap for its thin-film cadmium-telluride (CdTe) technology could see it surpassing standard multicrystalline silicon (c-Si) module efficiencies by the end of 2015.

As the April 2014 edition of the Pulse shows, current average commercial module efficiencies for multi c-Si modules at the end of 2013 ranged from 15.0 percent to 15.2 percent, almost 2 percent higher than First Solar's fleet average efficiency of 13.4 percent. By the end of 2015, however, First Solar's roadmap sees average efficiencies of 16.2 percent, compared to 15.8 percent for multi c-Si.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articl...-on-efficiency

Advice for utilities: Don't cede power to clean energy
By Suzanne C. Shelton
Published April 11, 2014

I once read that when Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights legislation into law, he said something like, "I'm ceding the South to the Republican Party for the next 40 years." Listening to several utility CEOs talk at the WSJ ECO:nomics conference last week, it seemed like many were taking a parallel track: ceding electricity generation to the solar industry, perhaps forever.

The message from several utility CEOs was, "We're focusing on transmission and distribution and getting the grid shored up to withstand lots of points of generation, some of which will not be controlled by us." Now, I applaud that they don't have their heads in the sand about the growing market desire to create and store energy (it seems to me that some utilities are trying to fight the market signals rather than pivoting to coexist with/accommodate customer desires). But I'd also urge utilities not to cede the enviable marketing relationship they have with their customers.

Quite literally, utilities have an opportunity that every other industry wishes it had. They:

• Have all their customers' current contact information.

• Know all about their customers' behaviors and usage patterns.

• Can send a basic letter to any given customer and just about be guaranteed that the letter will be opened.

So, to all you utility executives out there, I'd say two things:

1. Don't cede your role as a customer relationship manager.

2. As you focus on making the grid work for a thousand points of generation, tell your customers about it.

http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2014/04...dont-back-down