Technical Papers

How best to bridge the gap between the production of renewables such as solar and demand is the subject of much debate. Marc Perez, Richard Perez, Karl R. Rabago and Morgan Putnam argue the case for curtailment combined with storage as a cost-effective solution.

Development and private capital is fuelling a solar boom across the Earth’s four corners, from India to South Africa and Mexico. Five finance heavyweights walk José Rojo through their learnings so far and their future plans to tap into an industry they see as key to a better world.

Bogotá seems ready to kickstart its dormant renewable sector to bolster a hydroreliant power mix but auction delays suggest the road may be bumpy. José Rojo explores the factors behind the country’s slower PV awakening as Brazil, Mexico and other neighbours surged ahead.

The UK’s small-scale feed-in tariff closed to new applicants earlier this year, forcing policy makers and installers alike to run the rule over new models and legislation. Liam Stoker takes a look at the government’s Smart Export Guarantee and what it might mean for UK solar.

Slowly but surely, China’s solar policy void is being filled with a 30GW auction at the heart of it. Carrie Xiao digs into the details as the draft proposals take the first steps towards official status.

Despite its coming of age from the days of state support, European PV remains at the mercy of regulatory whims. José Rojo examines how bureaucracy, grid bottlenecks and other pitfalls of government action can cripple solar as it becomes the driving force of a clean EU energy system.

As outlined on the previous pages, although still relatively embryonic in the solar industry, big data-based analytics innovations are already being deployed. Representatives from Enel Green Power, Aquila Capital and Pöyry discuss where their digitalisation efforts have so far been focused.

Big data-based predictive analytics techniques using artificial intelligence technologies offer exciting new possibilities in the field of solar operations and maintenance. Alessandro Betti, Fabrizio Ruffini, Lorenzo Gigoni and Antonio Piazzi examine how the power of data can be harnessed to safeguard the technical and economic performance of the PV fleet.

The advent of distributed generation and renewable energy sources is requiring a swathe of new regulatory standards to ensure safety and grid stability. Scott Picco, Laurie Florence and Tim Zgonena of UL look at some of the latest and upcoming codes designed to addressing the proliferation of battery storage systems and distributed energy resources.

Solar modules with half-size solar cells have the potential for becoming the new standard. The cutting of cells leads to electrical recombination losses at the cell level, which are more than compensated by reduced resistive losses as well as by current gains at the module level. At the same time, the cutting process must be optimized to avoid mechanical damage that could lead to cell breakage in the module. Module design opportunities for hot-spot protection, shading resistance and energy yield optimization are presented in this paper. Module power can be increased by 5–8%, which justifies the investment in additional equipment for cell cutting, stringing, lay-up and bussing. Half-cell technology is highly attractive for new solar module production capacity.