Technical Papers

Battery storage is flexible, remarkable — and investable — but you need to know what you’re doing and know where the market opportunities and limits lie. Renewable and clean energy financier Laurent Segalen from Megawatt-X explains some of the things he’s seen as batteries have become an infrastructure asset in their own right.

Battery storage deployments, both with and without solar, have been in a new growth phase that has smashed quarterly records consistently while costs have continued to fall. Nonetheless, the maturity of the industry is not always reflected in the information available to financial decision-makers, writes Adam Walters from Stoel Rives LLP.

As special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, prove a popular route to public markets for private energy businesses in the US, Fieldfisher’s Jack Mason-Jebb and Brad Isaac consider whether the trend has enough momentum to take it across the Atlantic.

The broader decarbonisation agenda is driving interest from businesses in procuring renewable power, and now a whole host of solutions and market structures are coming forward to accommodate them. Edith Hancock explores the maturation of corporate power purchase agreements.

Stephan Schindele, head of product management Agri-PV at BayWa r.e. Solar Projects, explores the mutual benefits of ‘Agri-PV’ to both solar farm operators and farmers alike, and reveals what is needed to take the sub-sector forward.

With extreme weather events becoming increasingly common, Molly Lempriere takes a look at how to ensure a solar installation is prepared to manage wind, hail, heat and anything else nature has in store.

The cost of insuring operational solar farms has skyrocketed over the course of the year, triggered by carriers rethinking their approaches to natural catastrophes and other extreme weather events. This has placed additional importance on mitigation strategies. Kevin Christy, COO for North America at Lightsource bp, details how the solar developer has adapted its strategy in the field.

As it matures, the solar industry is moving beyond the use of Performance Ratios (PR) as the go-to performance metric for operational sites. Christopher West, head of central engineering - solar PV delivery unit at Statkraft, argues the case for PRs to be replaced by alternative, more evolved methods of assessment.

Boris Farnung and Keith Punzalan of VDE and David Moser of EURAC’s Institute for Renewable Energy take a look at the positive impact comprehensive quality assurance measures can have on the early stage of a project’s lifespan, exploring yield assessments, LCOE projections and the critical need for high quality components.

Reforms in energy policy since the election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador have led to increased uncertainty for solar developers in Mexico, with renewables auctions cancelled and changes to power dispatch priorities proposed. Alice Grundy looks at how the market can move forward once again.