Featured in Potential for dark days ahead – 10-2018

Off-grid solar, the industry’s often unappreciated stabilizer

Grid-connected applications may be where the money is, and isn’t, but once upon a solar time off-grid was the dominant application in the PV industry. Nowadays it is considered a quaint niche application, and is often ignored in analyses. This is shortsighted, as all grid-connected business models have their roots in off-grid deployment. Village grids, for example, are the great grandparent of today’s microgrid and community solar.

By

pv magazine

09 Oct 2018

About the author Paula Mints is the Founder and Chief Analyst of global solar market research firm SPV Market Research. Paula began her career in 1997 with Strategies Unlimited. In 2005 she joined Navigant, where she continued as a Director in Energy Practice until October 2012, when she founded SPV Market Research. Paula’s areas of expertise include: global markets and applications for solar products, cell and module cost and price analysis, system and system component analysis (including inverters, trackers, and other BOS components), and trend analysis.

The distributed ideal of residential and small commercial PV deployment has its roots in off-grid remote homes and facilities. Demand for storage from homeowners so that they can have electricity security in a blackout or, ideally, decouple from the grid at will, is the off-grid reality. Even the problems are similar – affordability is the barrier …

This article is part of pv+

Subscribe digitally to unlock exclusive investigative reporting, expert insights, in-depth analysis, and premium background coverage. Your subscription also includes full access to the digital edition of our magazine.