Photovoltaic news and pv jobs

"Innovations in Value-Add"

10. June 2011 By:  Kleber Facchini

I have been writing for the past couple of days about the shift in PV power to more utility-scale applications. I believe that it is the move to utility-scale that will ultimately bring down the cost (or Levelized Cost of Electricity – LCOE) of solar and enabling grid parity, which will be a major milestone for the solar market.

To bring the industry to grid parity, we need to focus on the plant as a complete system to effectively lower the LCOE of a PV plant. The most effective way to do this is to package solutions together in a "value-add" offering. For example, an inverter is no longer just an inverter. An inverter needs to convert power from DC to AC, be a robust grid interconnection solution that enables plants to be "good utility citizens" and provide extensive condition and monitoring systems.

In my presentation at the conference (Wednesday afternoon), I showed how much a developer can save by using a comprehensive and utility-ready design, rather than using "pieces of a puzzle" to compose a utility-scale power plant. The developer needs to look at the bottom-line costs, which will yield even more savings in the installation. I am not at all implying that individual components will not drive price down but, what I am trying to say is that if developers look at the whole solution (bottom line) rather than individual pieces of the puzzle, the Balance of System (BOS) cost savings will be even higher.

Before buying products, developers should be asking themselves: how does this deal with low-voltage ride through? How does this handle a grid-level disturbance? How does this maximize my power generation? And, ultimately which solution will provide with the lowest LCOE. Grid connection, installation cost and O&M costs are all key factors to reduce the LCOE of a plant.

The solar industry, especially in the emergent markets (USA, China and India) will be installing huge multi-MW solar plants in the near future (even plants with hundreds of MW), and the bigger the plant the more challenges will come up during planning, installation, commissioning and operation of the plant.

A thorough investigation needs to be conducted on all aspects of the project and plant life, so that the lowest LCOE is achieved. The industry is moving from a $/W concept to a $/W.h (energy production mind-set), where the importance of a comprehensive, optimized and utility-ready solution becomes even more obvious.