No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Hot Topics at DistribuTECH 2018: The rise of DERMS, integrated interconnection and DER adoption planning
Every year we’re inspired at DistribuTECH, where in 2018 more than 11,000 participants from over 70 countries gathered in San Antonio to discuss the latest topics on grid modernization. For Clean Power Research and our customers, there was ample evidence that many of...
The future of solar forecasting with the new GOES-16 satellite
The SolarAnywhere® team transforms satellite images into industry-leading solar irradiance data. We make algorithms, not satellites, so when NOAA/NASA upgrades the hardware, we take notice of the possibilities—and get to work. On January 2, 2018 we made a seamless...
Why WattPlan Grid: Planning for DER adoption
Eight months ago, Clean Power Research and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) formed a unique partnership to solve the critical challenge of planning for DER adoption. In the words of our partners at SMUD, this new DER planning software—called WattPlan®...
Buy or build? NREL examines the pros and cons for DER application processing systems
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) recently released their independent study on "Improving Interconnection Processes with Online Application Processing Systems" for distributed energy resources (DERs). As DERs become...
Residential rates: Can utilities increase customer satisfaction while decreasing peak load?
Recently, utilities have been turning to residential time-of-use and demand rates to send customers better pricing signals. But the question remains: Will these new residential rates succeed in changing customer behavior? What happens to customer satisfaction?...
Transitioning from NEM to successor tariffs can be a breeze for utilities
As net energy metering (NEM) evolves across the U.S., utilities are facing the challenge of meeting new successor tariff requirements related to application data collection, communication, performance, online payments and more. That transition can be tricky,...
SolarAnywhere FleetView Forecasts Top EPRI Study
The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) recently completed a solar forecasting trial designed to help utilities understand the value that accurate solar prediction can bring to their energy market schedules and balancing operations. SolarAnywhere® FleetView®...
DER Program Managers – Get ahead of the storage surge!
Storage – A Highly Charged Market One way to gauge hot topics in the utility world is to track what’s new on the DistribuTECH Conference agenda. Due to strong interest from utility attendees and the vendor community, the DistribuTECH Conference Committee decided to...
Industry leaders adopting Clean Power Research solutions
At Clean Power Research, we like to think of ourselves as a small company doing big work. I reflected on this recently when I came across a list of the top 10 U.S. utilities (ranked by market capitalization, see Fig. 1) and noticed that 7 of the 10 were current...
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
3 steps to reducing solar customer acquisition costs
In anticipation of the soon-to-be released NREL report that benchmarks solar soft costs in 2010, plenty of media attention is being given to soft-cost reduction strategies. According to NREL’s data, customer acquisition and system design make up 11 percent of the cost...
20-million solar calculations served
This week, the engine that powers Clean Power Estimator® calculated its 20-millionth solar estimation (at least since we started counting). This marks a milestone for Clean Power Research and is a bellwether of industry growth. Since it launched in 1998, the rate of...
WSJ analysis reveals a truth about the economics of solar: sunlight is just one factor
Would you believe that Denver and Los Angeles have a similar return on a solar investment? Or that Brooklyn has better returns than either of those locations? Or that installing a solar system in Minneapolis or Portland, Oregon, could pay-off? These are the questions...
Gearing up for Solar Power International (SPI) 2012 in Orlando
SPI is next week in Orlando! Six of us will be there from our Kirkland, WA and Napa, CA offices. If you’re attending, please stop by Clean Power Research at booth #4058, right next to the “Energy Networking Station” in Hall B. Areas of emphasis for Clean...
The Ford Electric looks like a car and drives like a car…because it is a car
Recently Ford hosted an electric vehicle (EV) demonstration in Seattle that a colleague and I were fortunate to attend. At the demonstration, we were able to test drive the 2012 Ford Focus Electric. Not only was it very fast off the line, but we were impressed with...
The solar value proposition part 2: Charting a new path using data and analytics
In Part 1 in our series on the solar value proposition, we looked at a new approach to valuing PV. With this new approach, there is a need to quantify deferred and avoided generation, as well as transmission and distribution capacity increases through peak-load...
Solar forecasts generated from satellite images help balance power grid
What do NASA and NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) have to do with balancing the power grid? Plenty, it turns out, for areas with a high penetration of solar energy production. Read about the link in NASA’s Energy Innovations blog...
Impact of the North American Monsoon on solar variability
Solar energy output is predominantly affected by seasonal solar variations and weather. The angle of the sun to the solar panel changes with the time of day and seasonal variations, changing the available solar resource in predictable ways. Weather also affects the...
2014 solar trends episode 3: Solar Financing – A New Hope
Financing has been with solar since its earliest days. Before the lease and the power purchase agreement (PPA), residential solar customers would often purchase systems with cash. Cash payments are a form of financing, as the customer is choosing to purchase a solar...
Flexibility meets reliability: PVWatts and NSRDB now available through Clean Power Research API services
In keeping with our mission of powering intelligent energy decisions, Clean Power Research is introducing a 10 km Typical Meteorological Year (TMY) dataset for use in Clean Power Research API services. Programmatic access to this high-resolution dataset and the...
Power from solar: how much can you expect?
Determining whether solar is right for you depends in large part on the amount of solar resource available where you live. Each month, we generate the PV Power Map using SolarAnywhere® irradiance data. These maps provide more than just an indication of the solar...
Case study: Forecasting production of 170,000+ distributed PV systems
Falling photovoltaic (PV) system prices along with financing and installation innovations are driving continued rooftop solar growth—expected to be 30% in 2013 as reported by GTM Research. These customer-sited power generation resources are increasingly impacting...
How much is your land worth? Using solar irradiance data to quantify energy potential
Greentech Media’s recent article “How to Make Money from Land as a Solar Developer,” highlighted critical steps in the development of large solar projects that can make or break profitability. These include sizing the plant, applying for interconnection and a power...
How to reduce solar risk from seasonal variability: Part II
As we discussed in an article last month, it’s no secret that solar power generation can vary from season-to-season based on local weather conditions. So given this variability, how do PV system owners—whether residential, third-party, commercial or utility-scale...
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
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...
Hot topics at Intersolar NA 2015: ITC, solar + storage and snow!
San Francisco once again played host to the Intersolar North America conference in July. For industry veterans, this year’s event was familiar: crowded registration lines, bumping into old friends and a busy exhibition floor. On the other hand, this year’s hot...
Five to thrive: Key characteristics of great utility customer engagement
"The utilities that succeed in educating their residential customers may be [the best positioned not only] to survive, but [also to] thrive in the new customer-centric electricity landscape that is now taking shape." – 2015 Utility Residential Customer Education...
Lessons from SEPA’s Utility Solar Conference Part 2: Stop worrying about rooftop solar (start focusing on opportunities)
For all the talk of utility death spirals, a single graph from GTM Research’s Shayle Kann, presented at the recent Solar Electric Power Association’s (SEPA) annual Utility Solar Conference (USC), should give U.S. utilities significant comfort that residential solar...
Lessons from SEPA’s Utility Solar Conference Part 1: Get electric rates right to fill the belly of the duck
The Solar Electric Power Association’s (SEPA) annual Utility Solar Conference (USC) is the premier utility solar conference in the United States, and the in-depth discussions between utility and industry leaders can be counted on to portend where solar is heading. At...
UVIG technical achievement award presented to Tom Hoff
Last week, the Utility Variable-Generation Integration Group (UVIG) recognized Tom Hoff, Clean Power Research founder and president of Research and Consulting, with an award for his ongoing contributions to solar forecasting. The ability to forecast the output of tens...
Connecting 150,000 solar customers to PG&E’s electric grid
This week, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) announced a major milestone: connection of 150,000 solar customers to their electric grid. This achievement is the result of PG&E’s long commitment to supporting their customers going solar, and comes with some...
Our top 3 in 2014
In 2014, we covered a wide range of topics on the Clean Power Research blog, from the differences between solar resource datasets, to deep dives into value of solar calculations. The top three posts of the year followed suit, reflecting interest in topics that address...
Solar forecasting goes “EPIC”
Itron and Clean Power Research are embarking on the next phase of research that will lead to high-fidelity distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) forecasts, and integration of those forecasts into net load forecasts for the California Independent System Operator (ISO)....