Introduction

“In God we trust, all others must bring data.” – American Statistician W. Edwards Deming
Rarely does a single investment yield both significant social and financial benefit. In this way, solar is unique: this rapidly growing asset class offers the promise of substantial returns on investment in both.

While the financial community is—rightfully—focused on newly emergent risks of this asset class, such as managing the merchant tail and basis risk, it’s important that the financial community remains vigilant on the question of solar production risk.

Over the past few years, it’s become in vogue for financial investors and pundits alike to publicly dismiss the possibility of a solar power plant underperforming, with remarks like, “The sun will always shine,” and “Panels always work because they have no moving parts.” Success breeds complacency, and complacency breeds failure.

We are among the industry’s leading experts on the measurement and management of solar production risk, cumulatively representing hundreds of years of experience in our respective fields. Each of us are risk specialists with in-depth data on a specific element of solar production risk.

Rather than publishing “yet another” opinion, we are committed to letting the data speak for itself. Designed intentionally for a non-technical financial community, this report will be refreshed every year to provide investors with the latest insights on the evolution of solar generation risk.

Fundamentally, it is our hope that this report will serve as a guide for investors who recognize the importance of allowing data-based insights to inform the deployment of capital.

We look forward to the shared work of advancing our solar industry.

TOC

kWh Analytics: The “1-in-100 Years” Worst Case Scenario? It Occurs More than 1-in-20 Years

DNV GL: Narrowing the Performance Gap: Reconciling Predicted and Actual Energy Production

PV Evolution Labs: Over 5% of Commercial PV Modules Fail IEC Testing

Borrego Solar: Thoughtful Inverter Procurement Can Prevent 25% of Lost Revenue: Inverter Warranty Management

Clean Power Research: Understanding Irradiance Value in Solar Project Bankability: How to Sniff Out Irradiance Shoppers

Heliolytics: Recoverable Degradation: How to avoid 0.1%/yr Losses Clean Energy Associates: Aggregate Factory Report Shows High Levels of Major (35.5%) and Critical (1.3%) Findings Among Suppliers

Strata Solar: Force Majeure & Energy Modeling: 1 Hurricane, 81 PV Plants Down

Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables: Solar O&M Pricing has Dropped ~60% with More to Come

SunPower: Incomplete EPC Punch-listing Results in 1.2% Performance Loss in Year 1 Operations

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