Written by Marc van Gerven
Marc van Gerven is managing director of Q-Cells North America.
But there is more: Beyond the academics of measuring solar production
in more meaningful ways, companies must ultimately execute on their
promise of predictability.
This is where one’s business model enters the picture. If you measure systems holistically, then the solutions you offer should be holistic as well. Only players with integrated systems experience can wrap or bundle their offerings based on the real-world experience of product performance. With a project-level perspective, an experienced developer possesses a thorough knowledge of field-tested plant performance down to the level of the solar module and even the solar cell itself. This breadth and depth of knowledge delivers the data needed to offer true performance guarantees– all tying back to predictability and ROI.
In sum, thinking about the development and execution of solar plant production differently – with an emphasis on predictability and system-wide guarantees – is what will move the needle toward mainstream investment in solar energy.
Marc van Gerven is managing director of Q-Cells North America.
Marc van Gerven:
We all know an energy revolution is coming, whether we embrace it or
not. One day soon (give or take a few years), we’ll live in a world that
generates energy in radically different ways than it does today. For
me, that’s the exciting part of working in the solar industry. And I
suspect, as most media coverage I read suggests, this is also the
exciting part for most casual observers of the clean technology sector.
Yet, while we all enjoy reading articles about new gizmos, electric
cars, space-age wind turbines, and of course, the latest advances in photovoltaics, these advancements represent only the surface of a much
larger, systemic change in the way we will soon conduct business. New
technologies, especially disruptive ones, bring with them new business
models, new forms of measurement, new modes of communication and
ultimately entirely new practices.
To drive the adoption of new things, we must be cognizant of the fact
that change is difficult and often scary– even for the “experts.”
Bridging the gap between what is well-understood today and what will
eventually be commonplace in the future requires a great deal of
confidence building. Ultimately, it comes down to predictability.
For the solar energy industry to truly mature, it needs a performance
model that can offer investors confidence and predictability in their
return on investment. In order to achieve this confidence, a new model
must do more than merely offer performance expectations; it must assure
system performance in the same way a traditional coal plant does today.
Until relatively recently, the solar energy industry had been too
young, and the technology too new, to accurately predict return on
investment. This led to the acceptance of simple models to evaluate the
cost of solar projects. While these models are straightforward and
present a more complete picture of a solar plant’s operational
capability than even earlier metrics, they still only measure the sum of
the parts rather than the whole.
Sadly, these and other simplified metrics are not focused on lifetime
costs versus lifetime returns, and so they paint an inaccurate and
short-term portrait of plant production. The end result is misaligned
expectations, which could doom big, utility-scale projects to financial
failure.
Fortunately, a new model for evaluating the complete system is emerging, the power plant performance ratio,
which measures a system’s efficiency in converting solar radiation into
electricity. Because the performance ratio looks at the whole, rather
than the sum of the parts, this indicator can take into consideration
individual variables that are ignored by current metrics. By measuring
the performance ratio, power plant owners and operators can immediately
and fully predict the performance of the plant over its lifetime,
accurately assessing the value of the plant. For the first time, the
business of solar energy is catching up to the promise of solar
technology.
This is where one’s business model enters the picture. If you measure systems holistically, then the solutions you offer should be holistic as well. Only players with integrated systems experience can wrap or bundle their offerings based on the real-world experience of product performance. With a project-level perspective, an experienced developer possesses a thorough knowledge of field-tested plant performance down to the level of the solar module and even the solar cell itself. This breadth and depth of knowledge delivers the data needed to offer true performance guarantees– all tying back to predictability and ROI.
In sum, thinking about the development and execution of solar plant production differently – with an emphasis on predictability and system-wide guarantees – is what will move the needle toward mainstream investment in solar energy.
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