Differentiating Quality: PV Standards & Methods for Underwriting Certainty
March 6, 2012
San Francisco, California
With sponsorship from DOE's Solar Energy Technologies Program through the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, CleanPath hosted a workshop to build communication between investors and technical standards and testing organizations.
The primary objectives of the workshop were to:
- Discuss the standards and methods needed to ensure the quality of PV performance prediction
- Identify the standards and methods needed to ensure selection of quality components
- Identify the standards and methods needed to ensure the quality of operations and feedback
- Identify the needs of underwriters for lower capital costs
- Identify the specific roles of national laboratories regarding standards and methods
Below are the presentations given at the workshop. The following documents are available as Adobe Acrobat PDFs.
Quality Assurance Challenge Address
- Quality PV, David Williams, CleanPath
Capital and Underwriter Requirements/Needs
Moderator: Andrew Braff, WSGR
GOAL: Identify specific needs of underwriters for lower capital costs
- Giuanluca Signorelli, Rabobank
- Jason Kaminsky, Wells Fargo
- GCube Overview, John McLane, G-Cube (Lloyd's of London)
- Greg Rosen, Union Bank
Independent Engineers inputs/outputs
GOAL: Identify gaps from available research and standards
- Independent Engineer Perspective, Ray Hudson, BEW Engineering
- Solar Photovoltaics—Industry Input, Ric O'Connell, Black & Veatch
- Technical Certification Rating Concept for PV Systems, Ben Compton, Meteocontrol
Perspectives
- The Challenges of Accurately Predicting PV System Performance, Joshua Stein, Sandia National Laboratories
- PV Modeling Accuracy & Bankability, Ben Bourne, SunPower
National Organization Role
GOAL: Identify specific role for national labs for standards/methods
- Differentiating Quality PV Workshop Overview, Brian Hunter, DOE
- Steps toward Bankability, Sarah Kurtz and John Wohlgemuth
- Steps toward Bankability: Module and Systems Validation, Jennifer Granata, Sandia National Laboratories
- Differentiating Quality PV: Standards and Methods for Underwriting Certainty—Industry Perspective, Doug Payne, SolarTech
Roundtables Program
Quality of Performance Prediction
Identify next steps of needs to support PV system modeling software, .pan file validation of modules, modeling of new technology, and long degradation of system performance.
Chairs: Rhonda Bailey, DNV, Jeff Newmiller, DNV
Quality of Goods Installed
Identify the necessary standards/methodology to approach testing PV systems to ensure selection of quality components, consistent definition of "performance," and reliability predictors.
- Quality of Goods Installed, Jenya Meydbray, PV Evolution Labs
Quality of Operations and Feedback
Identify the necessary standards/methodology to gather information about the actual "performance," uncertainty, and mechanism to feedback along the quality assurance chain.
- Operation and Maintenance (O&M) in the Quality Improvement Cycle, Adam Burstein, Next Phase Solar