One of the outgrowths of the pending sunset of the Federal Investment Tax Credit and a slowdown in new large-scale solar projects entering service is that existing assets, both in service and under construction, may become more valuable. Buyers are active and owners are putting together larger and more diverse portfolios of PV projects.
A recent study by the PV Performance and Analytics Modeling Collaborative (PVMAC) at Sandia National Laboratories reports that the rise of large, complex solar portfolios is causing fragmentation in operational data that could threaten output performance and financial returns.
The problem, the authors assert, is that many stakeholders, which may have limited industry experience, are not fully aware of the importance of PV operations software on plant performance. At its core, the problem is the lack of standards for reporting, the study says, particularly in key performance indicators (KPI) metrics.
“The [solar] industry lacks clear and consistent understanding of PV operations software, and many stakeholders are not fully aware of the importance of these tools for improving operational performance,” the report states. “This makes it difficult to assess capabilities, compare approaches, and make informed decisions.”
The PVMAC solicited the input of 24 providers of operations and maintenance (O&M) software providers to assess the capabilities, integration practices and operational functionality of their commercial systems representing more than 1.1 TW of solar assets across over 115,000 sites.
The responses indicated that while 70% of platforms offer public application programming interfaces (APIs), 30% still place restrictions and costs on data export. The report also found that only 17% of providers publicly document their KPI performance methodologies and only about half claim KPI reproducibility, making it difficult for operators to consistently evaluate performance across assets and platforms.
According to Texas-based enSights, a provider of O&M intelligence and energy business management software that participated in the research, challenges compounded by different data access points across manufacturers, distributed energy resource asset age and operational platforms.
“The data accessibility issue and array of different performance KPI definitions are only compounding the data fragmentation challenge, at a time when operators are under increasing pressure to optimize portfolio performance and returns,” said Alon Mashkovich, co-founder and CEO of enSights. “A fragmented data landscape that makes it increasingly difficult for operators to gain a clear understanding of portfolio performance, ultimately limiting their ability to maximize returns and realize the full value of their assets.”
Mashkovich added that by removing these barriers, software providers will be able to enable operators to obtain a clearer view of their portfolios that will enable better decisions, stronger performance and greater confidence in the data that drives them.
The Sandia report offers the following takeaways on O&M software characteristics and their potential pitfalls:
Mashkovich said the industry must advance beyond simply collecting data towards ensuring it can move freely across systems. It should also work to establish standardized performance KPI definitions in order to eliminate variations between expected yield calculations, digital twin definitions, performance methodologies and KPI calculations in order to more accurately predict portfolio performance.
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