Intersolar Europe - Gearing up For a Solar Storm

This is the first of two articles exploring innovations in the solar section that are helping facilitate the energy transition and the drive to reduce carbon emissions. In this article I focus on the broader context for solar energy and examples of innovation in its core technologies. The second article will explore the broader opportunities

I attended the May 2022 Intersolar Europe event in Munich as a guest of Huawei UK and Huawei’s Solar Solutions business . The aim was to get a sense of how the solar sector is gearing up for the future and to review some of the most interesting and innovative developments on show. What was clear from the outset is how the industry and its supplier base are positioning for an acceleration of the transition to renewables. A number of players were emphasising innovation and accelerated capacity development as cornerstones of helping households and businesses respond to three key issues - the current energy price shock, the green agenda, and the broader emissions reduction challenge.

A Planet Powered by the Sun? The Solar Opportunity

The size of the prize is clear. There is a growing body of evidence that harnessing solar power on a global scale could have a transformative impact on the energy sector and reducing its emissions. For example, a 2021 nature study,[1] ?reported in The Conversation,[2] estimates that placing solar panels on half the world’s roofs could meet its entire electricity demand.

The nature study found that, with almost 800 million people globally lacking proper electricity access, this and the emissions reduction challenge could both be aided by a decline of up to 79% in solar panel prices compared to 2010. The study estimated that this level of renewable solar energy could be generated from the 0.2 million km2 of rooftops (roughly the same land area as the UK) evaluated in the study. These rooftops cover over 300 million buildings across 130 million km2 of land – almost the entire planet’s land surface. An October 2021 ‘Green Energy Brief’ from energy transition site Electrek reports that the US has enough usable rooftop space to deploy solar that would match current generation levels.[4] Even taking account of fossil fuel usage in solar panel production, the estimate is that such a transition could lead to a reduction of 20-40 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions.

To help put the solar opportunity in context, Michael Rae, Channel Director of Digital Solar at Huawei explained that solar is a critical enabler in achieving the UK’s Paris agreement commitment of getting to carbon neutrality by 2050. He explained that, in the UK for example, we are in the post-subsidy phase of solar. Previously, there were attractive government incentives to feed excess energy into the national energy distribution grid. These were producing attractive financial returns for home owners investing in solar installations. Despite reductions in those government incentives for installing domestic solar power, the proposition is becoming?increasingly attractive. Now the incentive to invest is coming from rising domestic energy prices which saw a rise of 54% in April 2022. A further rise has been announced – with ?an additional 42% increase to a cap of around ￡2,800 in October 2022. This represents a total increase of around 119% in less than one year. The spike in energy prices is focusing the attention of homeowners, commercial entities, utility companies, investors, and asset owners.

The attraction of a shift to solar power is becoming increasingly clear, and the environmental benefits could be significant. The challenge is one of growing both the scale of solar generation and installation capacity. These are both essential to keep pace with the dramatic current increase in demand for solar solutions - which is?expected to continue for some time to come and help accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels.

The sheer scale of the energy price increases, coupled with technology advancements,?also offer the promise of delivering a return on investment (ROI) over a period of six to seven years, as compared to ten years previously. Given the current scale of demand and its anticipated exponential growth – there is a clear emphasis on making installation, operation, and maintenance simpler, faster, and cheaper. The resulting challenge for manufacturers in the sector is to deliver fully integrated solar energy management systems with complete interoperability between all of the components.

Other key benefits aided by such fully integrated solutions are increased reliability, safety, and scalability. This allows for larger panel installations and the use of optimisers which can increase the efficiency of energy conversion by up to 30% - all of which can help bring down the timescales to achieve?a positive ROI.

Scaling up both generation capacity and the efficiency of the underlying systems can also bring significant financial benefits. For operators there is a clear opportunity to generate additional revenues. Increasing the generating capacity and more efficient storage technologies can help players at every level from utilities to households store more of the energy produced and put it to use – increasing the return on investment. Peer to peer sharing between properties and ?aggregating resources across communities can bring further benefits. For businesses, the transition to solar is vital in ensuring the predictability of running costs and avoiding energy price increases being passed on to customers.

For utility companies the investment case is based on the scale, longevity, and operational efficiency of solar farms. Ever improving panel technology, enhanced reliability, and continuous automated cleaning and inspection routines could offer a lifespan of 25-30+ years and bring down servicing and maintenance costs. There is also a need to maximise and improve yields from photovoltaic (PV) solar panel farms. Technology advances are also enabling remote monitoring for multiple different fault types in the system, with software based diagnosis and rectification also help in keeping PV farms running while maintenance issues are being addressed.

?Innovation in Panel Technology

There was a mind blowing array of solar panel solutions on display, indeed they could probably have powered the show! Innovations on display included designs intended to blend in with the surrounding the environment, custom solutions, flexible panels, hanging panels, solar railings, and solar blankets. From these, three in particular stood out.

Aesthetics

There is a growing sense in the sector that, looking ahead as solar adoption rises, customers will increasingly want the panels to blend in with the surrounding environment. In response, Canadian manufacturer Mitrex has developed a range of custom solar panels driven by its mission to be ‘the catalyst that accelerates the adoption of sustainable human based structures and that any surface area that the sun touches should be used to generate energy.’

The panels are designed to look like different forms of roof tiles and other traditional roofing materials. They come in 64 different sizes and the company says that these panels are the first of their kind in the market. Mitrex clams that an entire building envelope of such panels can be fabricated in just two weeks – meeting the growing desire for aesthetics and delivery speed.

Semi-Flexible Panels

DAS Energy from Austria was one of the firms demonstrating semi-flexible solar panels. The DAS solution uses lightweight composite materials that are glued to roofs. This results in a panel weight of approximately 3.3.Kg / sqm – significantly lower than more conventional solutions. These are seen as particularly suitable for large industrial roofs with issues such as odd shaped structures, chimneys, obstructions, and load bearing restrictions.

Multi-Functional Solutions

Perhaps the most eye catching solution on display was the Logic Swiss Hero Wind compact unit that combines a solar panel, a cooling system that increases conversion efficiency, and two wind generators per module that allow for energy generation at night.

Logic Swiss claim that these modules generate three times the renewable energy of other panels covering the same roof area.

The company says that the combination of wind power, photovoltaics, and solar thermal energy is a 365/24h solution that generates clean energy at night, in winter, and on days with little sunshine. Because of the energy yield, the units are also positioned as being ‘100% climate positive’ after only two years.

Conclusions

The event highlighted how the solar industry is beginning to believe that its time has come and that it could play a massive role in helping to counter rising fuel prices, facilitate the energy transition, and drive down emissions globally. The innovations on display also show that many in the sector are really taking seriously their responsibility to lead by example and drive down their own energy footprint and emissions while helping their customers on that journey. In the face of a rapid and massive rise in demand and an expectation of exponential growth. The core challenges now are to scale up manufacturing and installation capacity while also improving the efficiency, cost, and ease of installation, operation, and maintenance at the domestic, commercial, and utility level.

To learn more about Huawei’s thinking on sustainable energy futures, download their white paper on Global Energy Transition and Net-Zero Carbon Development

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References and Image Sources

[1] Siddharth Joshi, Shivika Mittal, Paul Holloway, Priyadarshi Ramprasad Shukla, Brian ó Gallachóir, and James Glynn - High resolution global spatiotemporal assessment of rooftop solar photovoltaics potential for renewable electricity generation https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-25720-2

[2] Siddharth Joshi, James Glynn, and Shivika Mittal - Solar panels on half the world’s roofs could meet its entire electricity demand – new research https://theconversation.com/solar-panels-on-half-the-worlds-roofs-could-meet-its-entire-electricity-demand-new-research-169302

[3] NxTide https://pixabay.com/photos/house-solar-panels-architecture-6935453/

[4] Michelle Lewis - EGEB: Rooftop solar could match annual total US power generation - https://electrek.co/2021/10/18/egeb-rooftop-solar-could-match-annual-total-us-power-generation/

[5] gregroose https://pixabay.com/photos/electricity-electric-generator-3287817/

[6] Mitrex www.mitrex.com

[7] DAS Energy https://das-energy.com/en/services/medialibrary

[8] Logic Swiss Hero Wind https://www.a-energieteam.ch/schwerpunkte/eigenenergie/strom-aus-windkraft/