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3 Drivers of C&I Solar Project Design in a Maturing Market

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Update time : 2019-06-03 10:39:51

Most of the discussion around high soft costs in solar is solar energy focused on the residential sector, but Solar Project the situation solar energy is not much better in the commercial market. Non-hardware soft costs make up nearly 60 percent of the total price for a flat-roof commercial Solar Project PV system, according to GTM Research.

Soft costs are decreasing, solar tracker actuator but slowly, and margins for commercial Solar Project developers are being squeezed. Margins are expected to compress further in the coming years, while lower Solar Project costs are enabling the commercial and industrial solar sector to take off. Last year was a banner year for non-residential distributed solar, according to GTM Research, with the market Photovoltaic holder growing solar energy nearly 50 percent from 2015 to 2016 to more than 1,500 Solar Project megawatts.

That’s just  Solar Project a drop in the bucket, however. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has identified more than a solar energy terawatt of potential rooftop solar capacity in the U.S., about one-third solar energy of which is on buildings with more than 5,000 square feet of rooftop area, which are largely commercial structures. By one NREL estimate, up to two-thirds of commercial solar energy roofs may be suitable for solar.

The market is far from unlocking Solar Project the full potential across commercial buildings in the U.S. “It is safe to say that no one has quite cracked the code on scaling that market,” said Shayle Kann, head of GTM Research, earlier this year. That is particularly true of commercial PV solar energy systems for small and Solar Project medium-sized businesses, which is a largely underserved solar energy segment.
 

“If you want to install many of these C&I projects in solar slewing drive a cost-effective solar tracker actuator manner, your process can’t be bespoke," said Samuel Adeyemo, COO and co-founder of solar design software startup Aurora Solar. The more steps required, the higher the soft costs. 
 

It’s a Photovoltaic holder sentiment that's shared solar tracker actuator by many of Aurora’s commercial customers. “We’re moving to a place where what you sell is what you build,” said Rich Robinson, ‎VP of digital transformation at SunPower. “We are trying to eliminate rework. We need for the Photovoltaic holder design you sell to consistently be a construction-ready engineered Photovoltaic holder solution.”

Faster sales cycles are becoming critical

As Robinson solar inverter noted, the time needed to rework initial designs in the final part of the sales process is unsustainable at scale. For commercial solar projects, there is usually some degree of design reworking that happens.
 

“Most slewing drive of the time, it can be substantial solar damper and costly,” said Christopher Hopper, CEO and co-founder of Aurora. That is where the slewing drive real value of highly granular software comes into play a faster sales cycle is not about shaving minutes off the time it takes to create a design, it is about shaving solar slewing drive weeks off the painful slewing drive process of having to deal with a change order.
 

“Local fire code walkway requirements could kill the feasibility of a proposed project," added Adeyemo. “So you better make it straightforward enough for your solar slewing drive sales solar damper team to factor that into your analysis the first time around.”
 

Another little-known solar inverter factor that can solar slewing drive alter the economics of a design is the fact that modules with the same power rating can have different internal wiring and diode placement configurations. Aurora offers the option of simulating system performance at the cell-string level. This level of detail could result in 1 to 2 percent increase in forecasted system performance, especially for flat-roof commercial designs solar inverter where inter-row shading might be a concern. A 1 percent to 2 percent increase in solar slewing drive performance can add up to millions solar inverter of dollars over the lifetime of a solar damper 20-year commercial solar PV system.

Sustainability sells, but financing closes

Falling costs are allowing many large solar slewing drive and small companies to consider solar on a purely solar tracker actuator financial slewing drive basis and not just  Photovoltaic holder to meet sustainability goals. Some of those commercial customers are also getting more sophisticated as they move beyond their first project. “Design choice questions are increasingly slewing drive financial questions,” said Adeyemo.
 

While Photovoltaic holder Aurora has long offered financial analysis for residential projects, it recently added the slewing drive capability for in-depth solar tracker actuator financial solar slewing drive analysis for commercial projects. End customers are increasingly asking about financial metrics, solar slewing drive and answering their questions is getting more complicated. The sales solar damper process, for instance, might involve discussing depreciation tax shields, or the economic comparison between an onsite project versus a virtual solar tracker actuator PPA.

NEM 2.0 is a huge challenge and opportunity, and not just in California

This year  Photovoltaic holder California adopted its net energy metering (NEM) successor tariff, also known as NEM 2.0. While the solar tracker actuator  solar slewing drive ruling by the California regulators solar inverter largely upholds the tenet that customers will earn retail-rate payments, it also solar inverter moves net-metered customers solar inverter to time-of-use rates, and introduces solar damper non-bypassable charges.
 

Some elements of the change to net metering could lower the overall return on solar. But for now, “There are all these variables to play with,” said Adeyemo. For savvy  solar damper commercial developers, that means slewing drive designing a system not only for the highest energy output, but also to solar inverter maximize revenue based on time-of-use rates and solar tracker actuator other considerations, such as non-bypassable solar tracker actuator Photovoltaic holder charges.
 

NEM 2.0 may be limited to California, solar damper but more holistic distributed energy rate design is solar inverter going to proliferate across the U.S. in the coming years, and is slewing drive already in the works in states solar tracker actuator such as New York. For developers, said Hopper, “Being smarter about all of these elements will put more money in slewing drive your Photovoltaic holder pocket.”

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