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In this first step in the Community Planning for Solar process, we provide guidance on forming a collaborative community Solar Planning Team and identifying initial roles, timelines, and goals.
In this policy brief, we assess the prerequisites for India to achieve 450 GW of solar and wind cumulative installed capacity by 2030. We examine requirements such as availability of land, new transmission buildout, financing and pace of deployment, as well as the impact on grid reliability and cost of generation. We also examine the impact of policies promoting domestic manufacturing. Deploying 307 GW of solar and 142 GW of wind capacity would use only about 1.25% of land that is categorized as barren or waste, which is equivalent to about 0.22% of the total land area in India. Because of the good solar resource across large swaths of India, the solar energy buildout—and thus the land use—potentially can be spread out. India would need about 280 GW of new interstate transmission capacity by 2030, a little over double the transmission expansion that has already been planned through 2025. However, most of the new transmission buildout is driven by the near doubling of electricity demand between 2020 and 2030. The total investment needed (in generation and storage resources) to realize this target is around USD 26.5 billion annually, which is 20% lower than the annual investment in India’s power sector across all generation resources between 2015 and 2019. We estimate that using domestically manufactured panels instead of imported panels may increase solar PPA prices by about 10%–15% in the medium term, but solar power would still be a cost-effective way to meet growing demand instead of building new fossil fuel-based power plants, because the price of electricity from solar plants has fallen below the variable cost of most existing coal units. To reach this target, India would need to build about 35–40 GW of solar and wind capacity every year in this decade. India’s power sector achieved a pace of capacity addition of 22 GW per year in the previous decade (including thermal and renewable). Policy and regulatory measures would be needed to increase the pace of deployment.
Accurate estimation of photovoltaic (PV) system performance is crucial for determining its feasibility as a power generation technology and financial asset. PV-based energy solutions offer a viable alternative to traditional energy resources due to their superior Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE). A significant challenge in assessing the LCOE of PV systems lies in understanding the Performance Loss Rate (PLR) for large fleets of PV systems. Estimating the PLR of PV systems becomes increasingly important in the rapidly growing PV industry. Precise PLR estimation benefits PV users by providing real-time monitoring of PV module performance, while explainable PLR estimation assists PV manufacturers in studying and enhancing the performance of their products. However, traditional PLR estimation methods based on statistical models have notable drawbacks. Firstly, they require user knowledge and decision-making. Secondly, they fail to leverage spatial coherence for fleet-level analysis. Additionally, these methods inherently assume the linearity of degradation, which is not representative of real world degradation. To overcome these challenges, we propose a novel graph deep learning-based decomposition method called the Spatio-Temporal Graph Neural Network for fleet-level PLR estimation (PV-stGNN-PLR). PV-stGNN-PLR decomposes the power timeseries data into aging and fluctuation components, utilizing the aging component to estimate PLR. PV-stGNN-PLR exploits spatial and temporal coherence to derive PLR estimation for all systems in a fleet and imposes flatness and smoothness regularization in loss function to ensure the successful disentanglement between aging and fluctuation. We have evaluated PV-stGNN-PLR on three simulated PV datasets consisting of 100 inverters from 5 sites. Experimental results show that PV-stGNN-PLR obtains a reduction of 33.9% and 35.1% on average in Mean Absolute Percent Error (MAPE) and Euclidean Distance (ED) in PLR degradation pattern estimation compared to the state-of-the-art PLR estimation methods.
This guide describes how to conduct a Solar Resource and Infrastructure Assessment. The guide is designed to assist community officials, volunteers, and regional planning agency staff in conducting a preliminary assessment for a municipality, community, or other jurisdiction, based primarily on a desktop analysis of existing documents and data. The guide provides a process that can be used to inventory and describe existing infrastructure, community needs, and resources from the perspective of solar development planning.
Preparing a plan regarding solar development in your community requires bringing together people from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives, who often have strong feelings and preferences about the amount and location of local solar PV projects developed in their community. The planning process should be designed in an inclusive way, where meaningful community engagement is prioritized. With a topic such as solar development, which can elicit strong reactions among community members, proactive community engagement that is perceived as fair will likely lead to more favorable outcomes. Whether your community hosts large tracts of forest, brownfields, residential neighborhoods, and/or large buildings and parking lots, there are a variety of ways community members might envision growth of solar energy. The engagement process can help clarify how and where solar is preferred, so that local government can respond to future solar development requests or to initiate solar projects that are preferred by the community.
This guide is designed to assist community officials, volunteers, and regional planning agency staff in conducting preliminary community meetings to learn about attitudes towards solar energy in your community. The guide will provide the key steps, timelines, facilitators' guide, and tips for hosting successful focus groups. Focus groups are meetings with a small group that represent a diversity of perspectives in your community. These differ from an open meeting in that focus groups include very specific questions that are prepared in advance, and all participants are given time to respond and understand various perspectives about solar energy. The guide concludes with a suggested template for reporting the results of your focus group or community meeting to your community more broadly. Holding community focus groups is part of assessing community preferences, as part of the Community Planning for Solar toolkit (ag.umass.edu/solarplanning). This guide is designed to help municipalities in Massachusetts and other states proactively plan for solar development in their communities. For more information, visit the UMass Clean Energy Extension (CEE) website (ag.umass.edu/clean-energy).
This guide is designed to assist community officials, volunteers, and regional planning agency staff in conducting a survey of residents to learn about attitudes and development preferences towards solar energy within the community. The guide will provide the key steps, timelines, distribution options, ethics, and considerations that should be made in developing a survey distribution strategy. The guide also contains an overview of various question types and response categories, with considerations for the type of data that are needed for the study. The guide concludes with recommendations for managing data and databases, data visualization, and reporting results. The appendix includes samples of materials used in a solar energy survey, from invitation letters to the survey. This document is intended to provide a practical guide for implementing a survey in communities that are proactively planning for solar development. The guide offers a practical “how-to” plan for conducting a survey. It may be advantageous to consult with an expert in survey development who will be familiar with any methods and techniques described in this guide, but this is not necessary. This guide offers basic considerations and examples of questions and analyses to help a community understand preferences of the community.
The Community Solar Action Plan is a living document that guides community solar planning action over time. As conditions change, new information becomes available, or actions progress over the life of the plan, adjustments may be necessary to maintain the plan's relevance. This fact sheet describes some things to consider when implementing, monitoring, evaluating, and updating the Community Solar Action Plan over time.
This fact sheet is part of the Community Planning for Solar toolkit designed to help Massachusetts municipalities and others proactively plan for solar development in their communities. This fact sheet will walk you through the electricity system, and help you understand how the grid is changing as distributed generation (DG) electricity sources become more common.
In 2021, the Town of Nags Head, located in the Outer Banks region of North Carolina, was among the first cohort of coastal and island communities to participate in the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project (ETIPP), which offers technical assistance and cash awards to competitively selected coastal, remote, and island communities seeking to transform their energy systems and increase their energy resilience. As a barrier island separated from mainland North Carolina, Nags Head experiences impacts from extreme weather events, including power outages, especially during hurricane season. To address challenges, the Nags Head ETIPP team sought to improve the town's disaster resilience by ensuring that critical facilities can remain powered during and after extreme events. With support from experts at Sandia National Laboratories, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and the Coastal Studies Institute, the community team identified the following goals for its participation in ETIPP: 1. Identify and prioritize critical facilities that, when powered during disruptions, support the town's resilience. 2. Analyze the potential for on-site solar photovoltaic (PV) and storage systems at 2-4 prioritized critical facilities owned and/or operated by the town. 3. Analyze the potential for interconnecting solar PV and storage systems at a cluster of public and privately owned facilities into a resilient microgrid. 4. Explore finance options and utility interconnection requirements and compensation mechanisms. 5. Summarize outcomes and next steps for town leadership.
The National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB) is the leading public source of high-resolution solar resource data in the United States, with more than 400,000 users annually. This database represents the state of the art in the satellite-based estimation of solar resource information and uses a unique physics-based modeling approach that enables improvements in accuracy with the deployment of the next-generation geostationary satellites. Making the highest-quality, state-of-the-art, regularly updated datasets available on a timely basis for users reduces costs of solar deployment by providing accurate information for siting studies and system output prediction and thereby reduces project financing costs and risks.
The report describes income, demographic, and other socio-economic trends among U.S. residential rooftop solar adopters. The report is based on address-level data for roughly 2.8 million residential rooftop solar systems installed through 2021, representing 86% of all U.S. systems. With its unique size, geographic scope, and level of detail, this report is intended to serve as a foundational reference document for policy-makers, industry stakeholders, and researchers. Key findings include the following: -Median solar adopter income was about $\$110$k/year in 2021, compared to a U.S. median of about $\$63$k/year for all households and $\$79$k/year for all owner-occupied households -The degree of income skew varies significantly across all states, but all states exhibit some positive income skew, with median solar-adopter incomes ranging from 131-168% of the respective county-median income for all households -Notwithstanding the fact that solar adopter incomes skew high, a substantial share of adopters could be considered low-to-moderate income (LMI), with 22% of all 2021 adopters earning less than 80% of area median income, and an additional 21% between 80% and 120% of area median income. -Solar-adopter incomes are declining over time, with median incomes dropping from $\$129$k in 2010 to $\$110$k in 2021, as adoption becomes more proportionately distributed across the population and has started to broaden into low- and middle-income states since 2016. -Solar-adopter incomes are consistently higher for systems paired with battery storage, for host-owned systems, and for systems installed on single-family homes; higher income adopters also consistently install larger systems. -Solar adopters tend to live in Census Tracts not identified as “disadvantaged communities” (using the U.S. Department of Energy’s interim definitions developed March 2022), making up 11% of adopters compared to 18% of U.S. households. -Compared to the broader population, solar adopters tend to: identify as Non-Hispanic White, be primarily English-speaking, have higher education levels, be middle-aged, work in business and finance-related occupations, and live in higher-value homes In conjunction with the report, Berkeley Lab has published an updated accompanying set of online data visualizations that allow users to further explore the underlying data. Berkeley Lab is also offering related analytical support to states, local agencies, and other organizations on issues related to solar adoption among low-to-moderate income households; requests for analytical support may be submitted through this online form.
When Solstice began working in the community solar industry, it quickly became clear that there was a wide disparity along race and class lines in terms of what kind of household traditional solar offerings benefited. Solstice is an organization that aligns itself to the principles of a Just Transition, or the concept that a transition to a green economy should benefit and prioritize historically marginalized groups of people. Given that low-income communities are disproportionately burdened by our current polluting fossil fuel economy, Solstice set out to investigate the root causes of the exclusion of low to moderate income (LMI) households in the community solar market. As we worked more and more with financiers, developers, and LMI households, we recognized that significant barriers to entry in a developer-owned project were credit threshold requirements. A FICO score of 750 and higher discriminates against LMI households that are not financially stable enough to take on multiple lines of credit (or who may not have been deemed credit worthy enough to access a line of credit) yet who may have been reliable utility customers. As Solstice began looking further into preliminary data and speaking to community-based organizations (CBOs) that serve LMI households, we found our hypothesis to be worth investigating; there was indeed a subset of LMI households with poor FICO scores (or no FICO score at all) that had perfect bill payment history. Though initially Solstice was intent on gathering a body of data to prove or disprove this hypothesis, we were also concerned that all this proof of a financially stable and reliable customer was not being incorporated into FICO, and wondered if such a score would be possible. After preliminary research into the existence of alternative scores, Solstice realized that many mission-driven lending institutions rely on alternative metrics that are formulated for their specific industry. However, we also realized that community solar did not have an alternative credit underwriting mechanism, though there was great need from solar financiers for one. We anticipated that the creation of an EnergyScore would contribute to financiers’ need to qualify more people, as these entities are desperately looking for ways to lower the cost of customer acquisition. FICO turns away nearly 50% of potential customers (according to our own acquisition experience), and much of the community solar industry is realizing that FICO is not the perfect qualifying mechanism. Additionally, with a grounding in energy justice, just transitions, and climate justice, Solstice recognizes the need for a solution that addresses a more urgent need for LMI households to access renewable energy savings and relieve energy burdens. With funding from the Department of Energy, we gathered the data necessary to build the EnergyScore, reached out to mission-driven developers willing to test the metric, and secured several demonstration projects to pilot the EnergyScore. After acquiring customers for these demo projects using the EnergyScore, we will be continuously collecting customer payment behavior data. Though it goes beyond the scope of this project, we plan to disseminate this de-identified data with the wider community solar industry, which includes not only financiers and developers, but other mission-driven nonprofits, solar cooperatives, community-based organizations, environmental justice activists, and academics. While we intend to disprove the notion that LMI households cannot be included in projects without acutely increasing the risk to project finances, we also hope the data can be used to negotiate better pricing of systems and terms of ownership for community groups seeking to build inclusive projects.
Offshore wind energy has the potential to play a critical role in fostering a renewable energy transformation in the United States. This owes to its massive technical potential, strategic location near densely populated coastlines, and - relative to onshore wind and solar - high capacity factors and consistent production. The Biden Administration's target to build 30 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030 (from 0.04 GW today) requires the creation and swift development of a new industry that interlinks the wind and power industries with the maritime sector. Critical to its success is financing. While financial capital is abundant, deploying it for offshore wind faces major challenges. We identify and describe five grand challenges affecting offshore wind finance in the U.S. Failing to address these challenges may put deployment targets at risk. The challenges include (1) Early years financing: navigating the complexities, timing mismatches, and high costs of projects in the development phase; (2) Policy support for project financial solvency: addressing the uncertainty and systematic transfers of tax credits away from offshore wind, characteristic of the U.S. Investment Tax Credit; (3) Workforce development: building a skilled workforce for an emerging market; (4) Transmission and integration barriers: upgrading the power grid to reliably support large scale offshore wind integration; and (5) Floating wind development: financing the development and scale-up of floating offshore wind technologies. The second challenge has already been solved to a large extent by the Inflation Reduction Act.
Although Tribal land represents more than 5% of the solar photovoltaic technical potential in the United States, this resource is largely untapped due to a range of barriers, including complex project economics, Tribal technical and human resource capacity, project funding and financing obstacles, and regulatory challenges. To identify and better understand the regulatory barriers, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Midwest Tribal Energy Resources Association (MTERA) engaged Tribes, utilities, and regulators. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the 3-year effort seeks to address regulatory challenges or barriers that affect Tribal solar projects differently - specifically or disproportionately because they are located on Tribal lands. This paper, largely excerpted from a comprehensive (draft) guidebook released by NREL and MTERA, provides an overview of 13 key regulatory barriers identified through this research, as well as potential short- and long-term solutions. In addition, the paper points to potential pathways for addressing key barriers through case studies highlighting successful Tribal solar projects along with considerations for stakeholders working with Tribes. These resources can support stakeholders in creating meaningful relationships and pursuing workable solar projects.
Papers are presented on the various technological, political, economic, environmental and social aspects of large manufacturing facilities in space. Specific topics include the potential global market for satellite solar power stations in 2025, the electrostatic separation of lunar soil, methods for extraterrestrial materials processing, the socio-political status of efforts toward the development of space manufacturing facilities, the financing of space industrialization, the optimization of space manufacturing systems, the design and project status of Mass Driver Two, and the use of laser-boosted lighter-than-air-vehicles as heavy-lift launch vehicles. Attention is also given to systems integration in the development of controlled ecological life support systems, the design of a space manufacturing facility to use lunar materials, high performance solar sails, the environmental effects of the satellite power system reference design, the guidance, trajectory and capture of lunar materials ejected from the moon by mass driver, the relative design merits of zero-gravity and one-gravity space environments, consciousness alteration in space and the prospecting and retrieval of asteroids.
The economic development of a typical village is presented. The village requirements, basic energy needs of the village, and financing of rural electrification programs are discussed.
Communities of color and low-income populations dedicate a disproportionate amount of their income to pay for energy. They also experience more frequent and prolonged service disruptions, impacting community health and safety. When designed correctly, commercial solar + storage installations have the potential to ameliorate these issues. However, utility programs created to support such installations are frequently underutilized because communities often lack the time and resources needed to access them. Further, historically, few utilities have had the motivation and incentives or experience to account for this barrier. RMI provided process support to Solar Energy Innovation Network teams, and described their experiences in accessing these clean energy resources to support historically underserved communities in our latest report. The report also outlines the roles of key stakeholders (e.g., utilities, building owners, and community organizations) in supporting program delivery and recommended practices to collaborate to meet community needs. The report focuses on commercial solar and solar + storage resources, including solar + storage microgrids. These technologies can offer benefits to communities who do not own their own properties. When designed to act as a "resilience hub," they can also support communities in times of electricity disruption. The report includes a step-by-step guide to collaborating with utilities to implement programs for historically underserved customers. Utilities can support these projects with financing assistance, modernized rate designs, and, in the deployment phase, technical assistance for system design and interconnection.