PV Tech Power Papers

Sandfire Resources, a mid-tier Australian mining company that operates the mine, called on developers to co-locate not only a solar power plant, but also a utility-scale energy storage system alongside its existing diesel power station. Showcasing the latest technological advances, the newly completed project in the Peak Hill Mineral Field has been hailed as one of the largest renewable energy systems installed at a mine anywhere in the world and certainly the largest in Australia.

Certifying the quality and performance of an entire PV array has been a notable development in the past two years. Sara ver Bruggen looks at the extent to which developers, investors and insurers are turning to plant-level certification to guarantee the design, construction quality and performance of a PV system.

The aim of the Solar Bankability project is to establish a common practice for professional risk assessment, which will serve to reduce the risks associated with investments in PV projects. In this article the project team discusses a key aspect of this work: the development of a methodology for the assessment of the economic impact of failures occurring during operation but which might have originated in previous phases.

After a series of hammer blows, and against the backdrop of Brexit uncertainty, the UK solar industry appears to have found some joy offering long-term contracts and self-consumption systems to commercial clients, a sector it had previously found hardest to crack, writes John Parnell.

Microinverters and power optimisers have become increasingly common features of smaller PV systems. Sara ver Bruggen reports on the technologies’ gradual transition into larger commercial and utility-scale applications.

The US solar market finds itself with the bizarre, but welcome, problem of having to “manage” a boom. Danielle Ola examines the impact of the ITC extension, alternative drivers of US solar and debunks the supply crunch myth.

With competition in the tracker marketplace becoming extremely fierce, rival companies are adding new features all the time aimed at minimising installation and operation costs, and enhancing durability. Here we profile some of the single-axis trackers currently available on the market and the innovative design features they offer.

Over the past 12 months, the US solar business has been on a rollercoaster ride, with the high-profile bankruptcy of SunEdison and the merger of SolarCity and Tesla stealing the headlines. Danielle Ola talks to the experts about some of the key trends shaping the world of solar finance and investment in the US.

Potential-induced degradation can cause significant power loss in modules if the appropriate precautions are not taken. In the first part of a new series in PV Tech Power on module failure, Peter Hacke and Steve Johnston assess the current state-of-the-art in detecting, avoiding and mitigating the worst effects of PID.

Energy storage in the US is being propelled forward by falling costs and increasingly favourable markets and policy. But for the full value of storage to be realised, numerous regulatory and fiscal barriers must still be surmounted, writes Matt Roberts.