Doing Well by Doing Good: Financing Equitable Access to Solar

Join HOMER Energy CEO Dr. Peter Lilienthal and Alex De Broe, CEO of Xant Wind Power to examine HOMER Pro use cases combining wind and solar, which are often complimentary in hybrid renewable distributed energy systems. XANT is a manufacturer of midsize (50-500kW) turbines for the microgrid and off-grid markets.

The Clean Energy Solutions Center, in partnership with the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), hosted this webinar on Assessing Wind Energy Potential with the New Global Wind Atlas. The webinar provided an overview, a demonstration and technical information about the newly released Global Wind Atlas—a new data set and suite of tools available via the IRENA Global Atlas platform that provides freely available very high-resolution worldwide wind data for the first time.Prior to the release of the Global Wind Atlas, wind data were only available at 10-kilometer resolution, which resulted in underestimations, increased risk and increased costs for wind energy developers. The Global Wind Atlas provides wind resource data at one-kilometer resolution. It was developed using microscale modelling to capture small scale wind variability, allowing for better estimates of the aggregated wind resources.

Many in the solar industry feel that overbuilding, or designing a photovoltaic array with a DC capacity greater than the AC rating, is not feasible or even detrimental due to inverter clipping. Recently, several top inverter manufacturers have introduced products that were designed to be overbuilt. Why is this? It could well be in response to project economics and / or capacity caps in certain locales. In this webinar we will explore the benefits and obstacles to overbuilding, more specifically the desired balance of productivity versus demand, and the cost basis in terms of kWh delivered.

Large commercial solar projects can be excellent business opportunities for solar contractors, but the difference between profit and loss is having an efficient design process and the right tools. Solar software can help streamline solar design while ensuring accuracy and increasing profitability. Aurora Solar will highlight design strategies for commercial megawatt-scale solar projects, including how to accurately account for shading, optimize stringing configurations, check for NEC violations, and maximize the energy output and utility savings from rooftop and carport projects. This webinar will demonstrate recent advances for megawatt-scale solar design, relevant to experienced C&I designers and new entrants to the market alike.