“Accelerating the Solar Economy” Pending AB 560 and SB 32 legislation top CALSEIA’s priorities.
I discovered over a week ago the presentations from The 1st Annual SolarTech / CALSEIA Summit held in early May were online and had been for some time. When I inquired the day after the summit, I was informed it would take about a week to get them on the website. This derailed my post summit post intentions, and I moved onto pressing topics like Skyline Solar and power electronics.
SolarTech and CALSEIA (California Solar Energy Industries Association) partnered on the collaborative SolarTech / CALSEIA Summit focused on six (6) SolarTech area Initiatives: Performance, Finance, Permitting, Installation, Interconnection, and Workforce. While the effort can have broader application, the Summit was oriented towards the California PV (Photovoltaic) market.
SolarTech was formed as an initiative of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and defines itself as “a PV industry consortium focused on creating a Solar Center of Excellence in the Silicon Valley. Our goal is to identify and resolve the inefficiencies inherent in the delivery of solar PV systems.”
The Summit began in a typical fashion with introductory presentations (Agenda):
In discussing SB 32 (Negrete McLeod), the CALSEIA sponsored Feed-in Tariff bill, Sue Kateley said:
California cannot do a German style Feed-in Tariff. It’s just not possible. So anyone who thinks that this is going to be like Germany or Spain, no, we can’t do that. Because we have a different tax structure, we have a different utility system, and we have different needs in the United States and in California specifically.
SB 32 would expand the existing Feed in Tariff program, Renewable electric generation facilities, to recognize the unique value of each renewable technology including photovoltaics and enables the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to set Feed-in Tariff rates for wholesale generation up to 3 MW (MegaWatts) in size.
In particular, I think AB 920 (Huffman) deserved a mention. This is the reincarnation of last year’s AB 1920: California bill goes beyond Net Metering requiring utilities to pay net metering customers for excess solar electric (and wind) power generation.
The core of the Summit was organized around Breakout Sessions tackling each of the six SolarTech Initiatives. Doug Payne set the stage in his opening remarks. Committee Chairs outlined each Initiative’s Big Bold Opportunities, Panel of Experts, Challenges / Barriers, and Accomplishments To Date before the Breakout Sessions began.
In the Finance Breakout Session, a moderated panel discussion dominated the time slot. Later, Summit attendees were able to comment, ask questions, or propose ideas. The Session concluded by drafting a list of the Top 3 Initiatives to address the Finance related issues identified earlier and during the panel.
This process is captured for each Initiative Panel in the Summit Break-Out Sessions Tee-Off & Summit Reports presentation. I’ve include the Top 3 Initiatives text from each Initiative Panel below as a resource to facilitate web searches.
PERFORMANCE PANEL
Drive Simple Unified Standards at Every Level - Performance Rating (like MPG) - Monitoring - Prediction
Develop Independent Certification - Performance Verification (like solar thermal) - Energy Ratings vs. Power Ratings
Educate Energy Consumers - Demystify Energy (kWh) vs. Power (W) - Consumer Education - Standards
FINANCE PANEL
Standardization and best practices of financing related contracts;
Resulting in 25% reduction in transaction costs.
Survey of international and domestic loan guarantee programs and institutions for best practices;
Resulting in increase in available sources of capital while reducing cost of capital and search costs.
SolarTech “guide” to use of federal stimulus programs for near term benefit in industry;
Resulting in better understanding and access to new federal funds.
PERMITTING PANEL
Emphasize training throughout the permitting process
Cross train building officials, code enforcement/inspection, fire safety, and industry
Integrated professional pathways: 2-year, 4-year, public, private, modular
Collaborate to develop training for solar growth: marketing/sales, customer education, permitting, rebates
Grant and stimulus money pipeline for solar technology training
Check the SolarTech Events Calendar for upcoming Symposiums and Subcommittee Meetings. For example, on Monday, July 13, 2009, the Intersolar North America Conference Program includes:
High Gain Solar (HGS) power plant dedication including HGS module ratings.
After In Search of Skyline Solar – Part 2, I managed to attend the dedication of the Skyline Solar High Gain Solar (HGS) power plant at the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) Cerone Bus Maintenance and Operations Division a while back on Friday, May 15, 2009. Funny thing was that the VTA Public Information Officer, not Skyline Solar, extended the invitation although the dedication was open to the public.
Skyline Solar, Inc. CEO Bob MacDonald thanked San Jose Major Chuck Reed for arranging the match between the VTA and Skyline Solar. The original Skyline Solar deployment site was planned for the Morgan Hill area but this was delayed by land permitting and easement issues.
CEO MacDonald said:
So this is Skyline’s approach to more effectively using materials so that we can get costs down and get the scale up. This is a relatively modest step in that direction, but we intend to be moving very quickly going forward and doing larger projects later this year and substantially larger projects on the MegaWatt scale in 2010.
The 24-30 kWp (kiloWatt-peak) Demonstration Project system capacity was declared to be 27 kWp. I am not sure why this was uncertain. Checking out the HDS Arrays amongst the crowd, I snapped a photo of what I believe is the module rating label. Skyline Solar refers to a module as an HGS Panel.
Max Power (Pmax):
71W
OPEN CIRCUIT VOLTAGE:
16.5V
SHORT CIRCUIT CURRENT:
5.6A
MAX VOLT (UL, IEC):
600V, 1000V
RATED VOLTAGE:
14.2V
RATED CURRENT:
5.0A
@ STC 1000W/m2 CELL T 25°C
Bin No: STR-571
Since this almost matches the theoretical module power rating after dividing 27 kWp by the number of Columns (4), HGS Arrays per Column (6), sections per HGS Array (4), and modules or HGS Panels per section (4), I believe this is measured under concentration conditions.
Each module consists of two independent strings of thirteen (13) monocrystalline solar cells, sized around one quarter of a 156 mm (millimeter) square cell, accessed by a junction box at each end. I guess each quarter cell from unknown suppliers can produce about 1 Watt. Two (2) strings times thirteen (13) cells times 1 Watt equals 26 Watts under one sun. It appears Skyline Solar believes they can extract almost three (3) times the one sun power from the monocrystalline silicon solar cells under 10x concentration.
I asked Skyline Solar representatives two questions.
Q: Why are some modules painted white while most are just aluminum? A: Specification variation was sited; no one knew why.
I thought either these white modules had different vendor solar cells or the white was supposed to reflect and maybe recapture the light in the trough. As can be seen in the Picasa slideshow solar cell close-up, all the cells were front contact monocrystalline silicon solar cells.
Second, I asked to look at the inverters towards the back of the columns and roped off from the public. I got a quick No on this one even though I offered not to take photos. Of course, I wanted to sneak a peek at the instantaneous power production.
Utilities like to own and operate their own generation. They really don’t like it when other people have it. It’s nothing disparaging of utilities; that’s their business.
But we want renewables to have an opportunity to have an equal footing, and the way to do that is through a Feed-in Tariff. So if you hear this term, Feed-in Tariff or FiT, we need to make it very easy for projects like this as they scale up into the MegaWatt scale to have an opportunity to easily get on the grid and sell their power in at a reasonable price.
This statement generated loud applause from the audience. Enough said.
The following statement cajoled my attention. Applied Materials said:
Another misconception held by over half of the persons surveyed is that solar panel installations on homes are the most efficient way to harness solar energy. In fact, “solar farms” represent an underutilized source for solar energy. The United States could supply its entire energy needs by covering just 1.6% of its land area with solar cells. In fact, putting solar cells on 1% of the area of global deserts would be sufficient to produce electricity for all the people in the world.
Why are the people wrong about distributed generation?
Generating and using power where it is needed is more energy efficient and perhaps less expensive than extending transmission infrastructure to unpopulated deserts. Power transmission lines introduce losses during electricity delivery. With the health effects of Electric and magnetic fields (EMF) still an open question, who wants a transmission line running through their backyard anyway?
Deserts are habitats too. Taking California as an example again, Concentrating Solar Power plants and Photovoltaic projects planned for the Mohave Desert face opposition from Senator Dianne Feinstein, sponsor of the CALIFORNIA DESERT PROTECTION ACT, and environmentalists concerned about plant construction and new transmission lines threatening endangered species and habitats per “Feinstein Seeks To Block Solar Power From California Desert Land” by Kevin Freking for The Huffington Post.
Million Solar Roofs? Memories are short, but the California Solar Initiative (CSI) began life as the Million Solar Roofs program. However, solar support policies in California and at the US Federal level, orchestrated by industry associations, regulatory watchdogs, and cost conscious advocacy groups, have aligned to slant support towards large “distributed” (1 to 10 MW) and utility scale PV systems. For example, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) is now proposing a Clean Energy Bank (or Green Bank) offering 2% interest loans for 20 years in the Waxman-Markley bill, H.R. 2454 American Clean Energy And Security Act of 2009. The loans target commercial systems only of course. Also, the revised California Feed-in Tariff proposal targets projects in the 1.5 MW to 20MW range.
While I realize Applied Materials is interested in selling SunFab production lines cranking out 5.7m2 thin film solar modules for massive, utility scale, ground mounted PV installations, perhaps this is not the photovoltaic vision for the rest of us?
After Intersolar 2006 in Freiburg, Germany, I was travelling on a train from Nürnberg to Regensburg, when I saw a hideous sight. The entire southern side of a hill was covered by solar panels. Although I can’t recall, I don’t believe they were multicrystalline blue. The core issue was a nice green hill encrusted and spoiled by glass. And I find most solar installations and modern wind turbines cool.
Remember the second lesson from Spain’s Feed-in Tariff boom and bust cycle (please see Solar Feed-in Tariff Disinformation): large photovoltaic projects, invisible to rate payers, do not encourage community support and involvement with photovoltaics.
“Is the CPV (Concentrator PhotoVoltaics) Industry Ready to Ramp?” More CPV Myth Busting plus CPV Environmental Positives.
Even as I finished the “State of the CPV Consortium” post, I knew a follow up was required to complete the State of CPV address. I begin here with the CPV forecast from the presentation by CPV Consortium Chairman/Director Nancy Hartsoch.
As you can see in the above Picasa photo, PHOTON International claims 10 MW (MegaWatts) of CPV was installed in 2008. However, Ms. Hartsoch thought this was not all High Concentration PhotoVoltaics (HCPV) but was dominated by silicon based concentrators. For instance, “Opportunities and Challenges for Development of a Mature Concentrating Photovoltaic Power Industry” by Sarah Kurtz from Technical Report NREL/TP-520-43208 Revised February 2009 lists silicon CPV suppliers Guascor Foton and Amonix deploying 10.6 MW of combined capacity in 2008.
In 2009, PHOTON predicts 50 MW (MegaWatts) of CPV installations. By contrast, the CPV Consortium expects 25 to 30 MW of installed grid tied systems in 2009 with “over 50 in process of being deployed.” Ms. Hartsoch said:
We are predicting that it’s about a 200 MegaWatt market in 2011 and could easily double again after that. So as you approach that 2012 timeframe, you are approaching cost parity with thin films, you are approaching grid parity, and the market is huge.
I’ll return to CPV Myth Busting in the sections below.
For Small to Medium Sized Installations? The CPV Consortium claims CPV can scale to large utility scale plants with size flexibility, future expandability to increasing demand, and Distributed Generation near the point of use.
Not Ready for Volume Manufacturing? Per the Sarah Kurtz NREL report, there is 132 MW of cumulative HCPV manufacturing capacity with SolFocus, Inc. (50 MW/year), Concentrix Solar GmbH (25 MW/year), and Sol3g, S.L. (12 MW/year) leading the CPV pack.
Unproven, Untested? New technology Regular readers of this blog are already familiar with ISFOC. The second 1.3 MW phase of the 3 MW ISFOC reference project for CPV commercialization is under construction, and Arima EcoEnergy expects to complete their 300 kW installation by the end of June 2009.
Regarding ISFOC expansion, Nancy Hartsoch said:
That program is currently being replicated in the Middle East. We are looking at trying to do a similar thing in the US to really get buy in for the new technology.
In the following PV Industry Forum presentation, Concentrix Solar shared their field experience with CPV systems including ISFOC and Casaquemada:
SolFocus Inc. SF-1000P 210W Concentrator PV Module SolFocus Inc. SF-1100P 300W Concentrator PV Module
There is no reason SolFocus must release technical information, although Concentrix Solar, for example, does provide transparency on Technical Data Sheets.
Environmental Positives In advocating “The Environment Needs CPV”, I think the CPV Consortium has assembled a few strong points in favor of CPV.
CPV was asserted to be “green in creation” with a minimum of photovoltaic semiconductor materials and quick to green operation via short energy payback within 0.6 to 1 years time. High efficiency and the two-axis tracking requirement favor pedestal type trackers driving low and dual land use with less permanent shadowing impact on plant and animal life than fixed tilt or maybe even single-axis trackers. Pedestal trackers could benefit high efficiency monocrystalline silicon solar modules in a similar way.
While the CPV Consortium claimed there was No Water Consumption for CPV, it is more accurate to state there is perhaps minimal water required for module cleaning compared to CSP (Concentrating Solar Power) which needs 700-1000 gallons (2650-3785 liters) of water per MWh (MegaWatt-hour) of energy production.
On recyclability, the CPV Consortium claimed 80-97% of a CPV module could be recycled depending on the technology, and SolFocus is supposed to be at the high end of this range. But, the recyclability of the Multijunction (MJ) III-V Solar Cells, which include Gallium Arsenide (GaAs), wasn’t discussed. I imagine due to their special requirements, no CPV firm is yet a member of PV CYCLE. I believe the CPV Consortium needs to develop a plan now to ensure module take back and recycling at the end of CPV system life for the nascent industry.
Don’t forget to vote in the new sidebar PV POLL: Is CPV (Concentrator PhotoVoltaics) dead?
On the second day of the PV Industry Forum 2009, SolFocus VP Marketing Nancy Hartsoch, in her role as CPV Consortium Chairman/Director, presented “Concentrator PV Advanced Technology Becomes Commercial Energy Solution” to kick off the misnamed Session 6: Silicon PV Outlook – Concentrating PV.
While I was irked (it wasn’t just me) by the three CPV PR movie clips, Technology Overview, Concentrix Solar factory automation, and ISFOC, punctuating the presentation, I was heartened by the messaging.
CPV was positioned as the having the best performance (kWh, kilowatt-hour production) and soon LCOE in hot climates with high Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI). Ms. Hartsoch claimed CPV generated “>20% More Energy (kWh) at Same Rated Power (Wp) in Hot Climates” than traditional silicon solar modules at 40 degrees C (Celsius). [Wp, Watt-peak]
In noting that CPV companies manufacture the highest efficiency solar modules available, Ms Hartsoch said:
And efficiency is the key driver of cost of energy, it doesn’t matter what kind of technology it is. When you get that into figuring out your Levelized Cost, efficiency is going to have the biggest impact on that. And CPV clearly as you can see here has the highest efficiency.
As higher efficiency Multijunction (MJ) III-V Solar Cells are developed, CPV expects to extend its efficiency advantage and beat thin film a la First Solar in LCOE terms by 2010 given the hot climate and high DNI prerequisites mentioned above.
The second half of the CPV Consortium presentation titled “It’s Time to Do Some CPV Myth Busting!” addressed common CPV Myths.
Too Expensive? The above LCOE slide was intended to dispense with the cost myth. Although a utility scale photovoltaic developer will analyze a project using LCOE metrics, in the end, a system capacity will be chosen to generate a certain amount of power or to maximize a limited resource such as land or transmission capacity.
Regarding the “Explosion of CPV Players”, Nancy said:
We believe there is no reason the cell cost with commercialization and volume can’t get to $3. Today it’s between $5 and $10 and closer to the top side of that.
These prices seemed to refer to a 15 Watt MJ III-V solar cell.
Contrast this frankness with a later Question and Answers exchange:
Q: “Can you give an order on the system costs involved with CPV in large scale installations?”
A: Ms. Hartsoch said: “In what metric, the cents per kilowatt hour?”
Q: “No, in Dollars per installed Watt.”
A: Ms. Hartsoch said: “Dollars per Watt. You know that’s a metric that we typically with CPV don’t talk a lot about because all it does is tell you what it costs to install something but It’s not related to the amount of energy you produce.”
Of course, the system capacity in Watts is directly related to the amount of energy produced. The root issue is how to compare CPV to other photovoltaic technologies. In passing, Ms. Hartsoch mentioned a PV equivalent metric without discussing it. For example, the PV equivalent of a CPV system capacity could be increased by the aforementioned energy production adder of at least 20% in hot climates.
The CPV Consortium is looking to standardize LCOE models used by CPV companies for comparability, but this won’t help compare competing PV technologies. I believe the inability to discuss system cost or price, even via the flawed dollars per Watt metric, leaves the CPV is Too Expensive Myth unbusted.
The last public CPV system cost metrics available are from the ISFOC 1.3MW CPV Power Plant tenders made public. Winning ISFOC bids were centered around €6 per Watt or $8.31 per Watt at today’s exchange rate. With SolFocus, Concentrix Solar, Sol3g, and others in mass production now, that is a CPV system cost myth worth busting.
Well, this is the second week the Blog has been excluded from Google Search results. I’m not sure if it is related to WordPress plugin upgrades gone awry or some real or alleged affront to Google guidelines. I do know the RSS Scrapers are still getting good search results with =my= content. I might have to consider switching to bing which indexes and provides good results for this Blog. Google, please fix this!
After waiting for a group to finish (yes, I can be patient at times), I got the demo run through by Ms. SolarMagic herself. The demonstration setup had two side by side arrays each consisting of two parallel strings with two modules each for a total of four (4) modules per array. Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. (NYSE:STP) Model Number STP190-18Ub multicrystalline silicon photovoltaic (PV) modules were used in both arrays.
In the above photo, the left array was the Reference System while the right array was the SolarMagic System. First, the power and current in each string of the systems was verified. I didn’t snap a screenshot of the demo monitor at the start but I did photograph the equivalent at the end. It was overcast with the sun in and out, so the modules were only producing about 32% of rated power.
Next a pad cloth larger than a single solar cell was placed on the lower right module of each array at the same approximate location. The cloth had a lattice of material allowing light to pass through simulating shade conditions or an impairment. Going back to the demo monitor, the SolarMagic System delivered 25% percent more power (44 Watts) than the Reference System as shown in the photo below. The Reference System string current, I2, had been halved because of the cloth.
Once the cloth was removed, both arrays resumed producing close to 120 Watts per string as shown in the next photo. So the classic A to B comparison made for a compelling SolarMagic power recovery demo.
Behind the SolarMagic System, the SolarMagic Power Optimizer per module was obvious but the Blocking Diode per string could also be seen. As I recall, the Reference System was also fitted with one Blocking Diode per string for comparability. SolarMagic’s blue LED blinks like a heart beat function when powered. When I first saw this, I thought the blinking indicated a state where SolarMagic was compensating for some sort of mismatch. In my experience, blinking indicates a problem.
Later in the week, I returned to try another experiment. I was curious if it was possible to get the SolarMagic unit to turn off if a PV module was 100% bypassed. Once my idea was communicated and understood, the demo folks let me give it a try. Well, the string power never went below 20 Watts; plenty to meet SolarMagic’s 5 Watt minimum PV module power requirement.
One ironic twist of the SolarMagic demo was the importance of monitoring, even at the string level, to observe system performance. This is a capability SolarMagic equipped installations will not have relative to the competition’s per module performance monitoring.
Solmetric, Inc. VP of Sales and Marketing Peter Hoberg is scheduled to present “Shade Matters” at this Wednesday’s, June 10, 2009, meeting of the Silicon Valley Photovoltaics Society (SVPVS).
Applied Materials Dispelling and Creating Solar Myths in the United States.
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