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kWh Analytics’ 2021 Solar Generation Index: Real-world data, collaboration needed to inform financial decisions and improve certainty in returns
As solar becomes a more attractive investment, transaction speed often takes precedence over accuracy, which can lead to market inefficiencies. In the 2021 Solar Generation Index report, kWh Analytics is supplying transparency to the solar industry with a performance...
Introducing SolarAnywhere® hindcast data: optimize PV plant design to deliver firm solar power
The solar market is maturing and off-takers are increasingly asking for clean, guaranteed power production regardless of the weather. This trend towards firm solar power delivery is visible in corporate commitments to operate on carbon-free energy 24/7, 365 days a...
PV innovation gets a boost with new SolarAnywhere Public: Current, complete, no-cost solar data for select locations
Solar PV is poised to become the new “king of electricity generation” according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), which predicts solar to lead the surge in renewable power supply over the next decade. Across the U.S. alone, solar is expected to account for 40%...
Clean Power Research offers pvlib models via SolarAnywhere; joins pvlib open-source community
With the rapid growth of solar PV around the world, project developers, owners and operators need efficient and robust solutions to help them develop, operate and maintain PV systems at scale. Programmatic access to solar energy simulations helps stakeholders make...
SunCast podcast: Industry experts discuss the past, present and future of solar project financing
In the SunCast podcast “The Value of Data on Solar Project Finance,” I joined Nico Johnson, the podcast host, Heidi Larson from ICF, and Hoa Shen from kWh Analytics in a discussion about the past, present and future of solar project financing. The conversation focused...
Leveraging utility trusted advisor status to drive EV growth and grid reliability
The electric vehicle (EV) market continues to sizzle across the country, setting a record for quarterly sales in Q1 and Q2 of 2021. Through April 2021, EV sales were up 130 percent over 2020, and exceeded 2019 sales by 75 percent. Utilities have recognized the...
SolarAnywhere® Data coverage goes global with added support for East Asia and Oceania
SolarAnywhere®, the industry’s leading solar data and intelligence service, now offers solar data services in East Asia and Oceania, including Australia and New Zealand. With the addition of this region, SolarAnywhere now provides full global coverage, including...
Reduce PV performance uncertainty with specific, data-driven snow-loss estimates using time-series data
A rapid decline in solar technology costs and ambitious federal and state-level renewable energy targets have accelerated the deployment of solar PV across diverse geographical regions. This has allowed solar generation to become viable even in northern latitudes and...
2021 Solar Risk Assessment Report: Data insights to mitigate financial, operating and natural catastrophe risk
With solar accounting for 43% of new generation capacity in the U.S. in 2020—an industry record—the kWh Analytics’ Solar Risk Assessment report is more important than ever to maintain the collective credibility of the solar industry. The third annual installment of...
3 tools to achieve error-free energy program application submissions
Managing the energy program application process can require a lot of resources. Accurate and error-free applications are crucial for reporting, quick application reviews, tracking program performance, and in the case of utility energy programs, higher-level planning...
NARUC aims to level the playing field for cloud software
In November 2016, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) approved a resolution encouraging State regulators to level the playing field for cloud software and on-premise software. Why is this resolution critically important for utilities?...
How one utility is advancing DER workflow management: Tucson Electric Power’s story
In a recent webinar survey, 94% of utility respondents indicated that email is used to trigger interconnection project reviews across departments. While email is an excellent notification tool, it’s an ineffective task management solution. When email is used for task...
100K applications in PowerClerk Interconnect & 500K in all PowerClerk products
The proliferation of distributed energy resource (DER) adoption, particularly solar, across the U.S. in recent years has led to a common pattern of records being set for utilities, installers and more. Along those lines, last week marked an important achievement for...
PowerClerk as the DER interconnection control center
Modern utilities are collecting and storing more data about their customers and the grid than ever before. This data is captured for many different business purposes and is stored in a multitude of systems “owned” by separate utility organizations. These local or...
What does “online” application processing really mean?
In the era of web-based technologies that streamline business processes and enable automation, the natural solution to handling complicated application processes is an online platform. But what does ‘online’ really mean? Based on more than a decade serving more than...
Southern California Edison’s journey to same-day interconnection
Winning Smart Electric Power Alliance’s top award for connecting the most solar in 2015—1,258 new MW of capacity—didn’t come without challenges for Southern California Edison. Adding that much capacity meant that the utility connected a new solar customer to the grid...
Powering maps with the distributed generation system-of-record
Mapping is an indispensable tool for electric utilities to understand their distribution networks and related capacities to maintain power quality and reliability. The addition of new distributed generation, including rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, can...
Build trust with your customers by facing electric rate changes head-on
By now it’s old news that the utility business model needs to change. According to Utility Dive’s 2016 State of the Electric Utility Survey, only 3% of utility respondents feel the utility business model does not need to evolve. Unsurprisingly, utilities are investing...
Electric vehicles provide large GHG reductions in Minnesota
This week’s blog post is a contribution from our guest author Dane McFarlane, of Great Plains Institute (GPI) and was originally published on GPI's Better Energy, Better World. To learn more about how Clean Power Research is helping customers understand the value of...
Net metering changes: An opportunity to improve customer satisfaction
Electric utilities are introducing new rate designs for mass-market (residential and small commercial) customers to better align with costs to serve and to encourage energy use habits that benefit the grid. However, with innovative rate designs utilities can achieve...
Decarbonizing transportation – Enter the electric utility superhero
A funny thing happened this year that hasn’t happened for a very long time. I am not talking about Leicester City winning the Premier League or the Cleveland Cavaliers knocking off the heavily favored Golden State Warriors. I am not even talking about the U.S. Women’s...
Will utilities fully unlock the value that rate change offers?
The U.S. utility industry is on the precipice of a tremendous value creation opportunity. Emerging challenges such as increasing renewable generation, new regulatory pressures, the growing number of consumer energy products, and declining load are leading to evolution...
Two years of operating a solar+ home: Does it work?
This article is a follow-on to Clean Power Research’s 11-part series on Solar+ homes series. Solar+ homes describes how homeowners can combine simple energy efficiency measures, solar PV, electric vehicles (EVs) and appliance electrification to create households that...
Electric vehicles: Increasing the bottom line for consumers and utilities
There are currently 14 all-electric vehicles (EVs) on the market, and eight of the top-ten vehicle manufacturers now have a plug-in vehicle for the average consumer in their line-up. With all the news, there is no doubt that Tesla Model 3 reservations of more than...
Paradigm shift for U.S. utilities: “Energy” efficiency, not “electric” efficiency
Stagnant load stinks If you're a regulated utility in the United States, stagnant or declining load stinks. Policies like decoupling help a little, but like any other business, no utility really wants to face the economics of declining use of their product. If one...
Should I wait for Tesla’s Model 3?
Tesla announced the release of the Model 3 on March 31, 2016, and several hundred thousand reservations have been made. This has demonstrated a strong market demand for an electric vehicle (EV) that has three attributes: It’s attractive, has a decent range, and is...
Solar+ homes (Part 11): After installation
This is the eleventh article of an 11-part series on Solar+ homes. The series describes how homeowners can combine simple energy efficiency measures, solar PV, electric vehicles and appliance electrification to create households that are fully powered by solar...
Solar performance monitoring in Europe and South America just got easier with SolarAnywhere real-time data
As renewables in Europe and South America continue to surge—with Europe generating more electricity from renewables than from fossil fuels for the first time in 2020—the ability to efficiently scale management of solar assets is critical. Whether ensuring long-term...
Record climate disasters, moderate solar deviations through Q3 2020
We’re introducing a major upgrade to our SolarAnywhere® solar deviation maps! The new maps expand coverage to three continents and increase resolution to ~50 km. The maps give asset managers and owners high-level insights into the weather trends affecting the...
What’s the value of your solar data? (And why the median approach to solar resource data selection falls short)
Are the solar industry’s pre-construction production estimates too optimistic? Yes, according to several contributions to the “Solar Risk Assessment: 2020” paper published by kWh Analytics. kWh found evidence of “an industry wide bias towards aggressive predictions,”...
Solar resource trends: Changing cloud-cover and AOD, and implications for PV yield
In recent years, we reported on lower-than-expected solar energy production in the Eastern U.S., corroborating PV plant owner observations using SolarAnywhere® insolation data. This prompted us to ask the questions: How does this recent weather activity compare to...
New Solar Risk Assessment report provides data-based insights for the solar industry
The latest kWh Analytics “Solar Risk Assessment” report provides solar investors with the latest insights on the evolution of solar photovoltaic (PV) generation risk—and the importance of allowing data-based insights to inform the deployment of capital. This report...
Less coal, sunnier skies increasing solar project value
In many regions around the world, the skies are getting cleaner thanks to controls on air pollution designed to benefit public health. The Eastern U.S. and Europe have seen dramatic improvements in air quality since the 1980s. Coal plant retirements and stricter...
Clean Power Research and EPRI win NYSERDA clean-energy challenge
We’re pleased to announce that Clean Power Research and Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) have been selected as winners of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s (NYSERDA’s) “Future Grid Challenge.” The project will demonstrate...
Leveraging GOES-17 for more accurate solar data
In February 2018, we blogged about the future of solar forecasting with the new NOAA/NASA GOES-16 satellite. The launch of the GOES-17 satellite held similar promise, but bringing it online ended up being problematic for NOAA/NASA—and provided a few wrinkles for those...
SolarAnywhere® 2019 weather report: Midwest solar energy resource downturn continues for second year
In July 2019 we posted an article about unprecedented weather affecting the solar energy resource across much of the U.S. during 2018 and the first half of 2019. In that article, we anticipated a rebound during the second half of 2019. So now that 2019 is over, where...
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The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
With electric vehicles and solar, the ‘whole is greater than the sum of its parts’
Is it possible to save more money by combining an electric vehicle (EV) with a home solar PV system rather than considering each individually? Often the answer is yes, and the additional savings can be substantial. To help energy consumers answer that question,...
Tucson Electric Power innovation makes utility-owned solar accessible for all
As solar has gained popularity, some utilities are getting into the business by offering residential customers utility-owned solar. This is often a good option for homeowners who want to save money on their utility bills with minimal out-of-pocket costs and freedom...
Tapping the win-win-win of rate reform
Utilities nationwide are adding variety to residential electric rate plans and reconsidering how to value rooftop solar. Rate changes being considered include demand charges and net metering “2.0” policies that provide customers less than full retail credit. These...
NV Energy cuts interconnection costs by 63% while application volumes swell
NV Energy’s incentive and interconnection application volumes have grown tremendously in the past 12 months—by 15 times. As many program administrators know, this type of rapid growth can overwhelm the administrative staff, leading to processing delays and unhappy...
Valuation of solar plus storage in Hawaii
Clean Power Research recently took on the challenge of developing a new methodology for performing a hybrid solar plus storage (solar + storage) valuation study for systems in Hawaii. The methodology was commissioned by the Interstate Renewable Energy Council, Inc....
Is it rational for the value of solar to exceed existing average retail electricity rates?
The utility and solar industries are in a heated debate about how to compensate customers who have distributed photovoltaic (PV) energy systems on their homes. Net energy metering (NEM) is currently the predominant approach used in the U.S. However, to understand any...
Minnesota first to develop Value of Solar tariff methodology for use statewide
The Minnesota Department of Commerce Division of Energy Resources (Commerce) has kicked off a stakeholder engagement process that will lead to the development of the methodology of an optional Value of Solar™ tariff for the Minnesota Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs)....
LADWP doubles solar generation capacity with streamlined incentive processing
The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (LADWP) – the nation’s largest municipal utility – processed 400% more solar incentives in the 2011-2012 fiscal year after implementing a new, more efficient program management solution from Black & Veatch and Clean...
NREL turns to SolarAnywhere for NSRDB
Yesterday, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) announced the newest release of the National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB). The database is widely used by solar system designers, building architects and engineers, renewable energy analysts and others to...
Purchase SolarAnywhere online, anytime: bankable solar data, on demand
When you have an important solar project deadline looming, you need reliable data—fast. Now you can purchase SolarAnywhere online anytime, ensuring you have access to the bankable solar data resources you need, when you need them. Our team is here to help, but for...
Solar performance monitoring in Europe and South America just got easier with SolarAnywhere real-time data
As renewables in Europe and South America continue to surge—with Europe generating more electricity from renewables than from fossil fuels for the first time in 2020—the ability to efficiently scale management of solar assets is critical. Whether ensuring long-term...
Record climate disasters, moderate solar deviations through Q3 2020
We’re introducing a major upgrade to our SolarAnywhere® solar deviation maps! The new maps expand coverage to three continents and increase resolution to ~50 km. The maps give asset managers and owners high-level insights into the weather trends affecting the...
What’s the value of your solar data? (And why the median approach to solar resource data selection falls short)
Are the solar industry’s pre-construction production estimates too optimistic? Yes, according to several contributions to the “Solar Risk Assessment: 2020” paper published by kWh Analytics. kWh found evidence of “an industry wide bias towards aggressive predictions,”...
Solar resource trends: Changing cloud-cover and AOD, and implications for PV yield
In recent years, we reported on lower-than-expected solar energy production in the Eastern U.S., corroborating PV plant owner observations using SolarAnywhere® insolation data. This prompted us to ask the questions: How does this recent weather activity compare to...
New Solar Risk Assessment report provides data-based insights for the solar industry
The latest kWh Analytics “Solar Risk Assessment” report provides solar investors with the latest insights on the evolution of solar photovoltaic (PV) generation risk—and the importance of allowing data-based insights to inform the deployment of capital. This report...
Working from home? PowerClerk delivers for utilities and their customers
This post explains how to extract maximum value from PowerClerk® in “work from home” situations and outlines a new offer for utilities and energy agencies to use PowerClerk at no cost on COVID-19-related programs. Working from home with no compromises With the broad...
Less coal, sunnier skies increasing solar project value
In many regions around the world, the skies are getting cleaner thanks to controls on air pollution designed to benefit public health. The Eastern U.S. and Europe have seen dramatic improvements in air quality since the 1980s. Coal plant retirements and stricter...
Clean Power Research and EPRI win NYSERDA clean-energy challenge
We’re pleased to announce that Clean Power Research and Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) have been selected as winners of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s (NYSERDA’s) “Future Grid Challenge.” The project will demonstrate...