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australia

Solar + Storage Already Cheaper Than Grid In Australia, Says LG Chem

by Guest Author March 28, 2017

Originally published on RenewEconomy.

LG Chem, the South Korean battery storage maker that has so far claimed the biggest share of the nascent Australian market, says that solar and battery storage is already beating grid power in most states.

The assessment by LG Chem follows similar analysis by private energy consultants, and suggests that the market for battery storage could be about to take off, even with looming threats of restrictions.

According to Jamie Allen, the marketing head in Australia for LG Chem, a 5kW rooftop solar system and a 10kWh battery storage device (such as LG Chem’s own 9.8kWh offering) can be purchased and installed for around $15,000.

Based on the assumed output of around 22kWh a day from the solar array, that makes the cost per kWh of solar power at around 22c/kWh over 10 years.

Given that most flat rate per kWh tariffs start at around 23c/kWh or 24c/kWh – even in NSW where there are high fixed network charges on top of that – the solar power is still on the money, although the battery storage is essential to ensure that much of that output is used directly, or stored for later use at night.

Of course, the actual cost per kWh of the solar output would be less than half the 22c/kWh cited here, because the panels would last well beyond 20 years.

But the 10 year time frame is used because that is the warranty period for most battery storage and it is the “combo” package that is being promoted. And without storage, then much of the output would have to be exported, with tariffs in NSW as low as 6c/kWh or non-existent for some.

What does this tell us? Allen says it is that storage is crucial to maximize the value of that solar output. Every kWh that can be consumed on site will beat the cost of production.

Of course, this is not the only benefit. Allen notes that the solar system will likely last at least another decade, possibly two, and the cost of battery storage to replace the current system will also be cheaper, while grid costs are likely to rise.

And, on top of that, the solar and storage system offers other benefits: back-up power for when local or wider blackouts occur, and increasing property values, not to mention the environmental and climate benefits.

So far, LG Chem has found the NSW and Queensland markets to be the strongest for battery storage, with consumers in regional areas, particularly interested because of the potential of batteries as a back up.

“The market is looking very positive,” Allen says. LG Chem, along with other battery storage developers, is watching the roll-out of the new Tesla Powerwall 2 with interest, but is confident its product is competitive.

And while Tesla focuses on proprietary models with in-built inverters, LG Chem is partnering with a range of companies including SMA, Solar Edge, Selectronics, Redback, Sungrow, Goodwie, Ingeteam, and Victron.

But Allen is also worried about moves by regulatory authorities to restrict the installations of battery storage devices, and effectively ban them from homes and garages and require them to be installed in a separate enclosure.

He says LG Chem safety tests have been exhaustive, and more than 30,000 LG Chem residential systems supplied globally with no fire or safety related issues.

A further 500,000 EVs and hybrid vehicles have used the company’s battery cells, again with no fire or safety related issues, and LG Chem lithium products are approved to be shipped via air. Yet Australian authorities want to ban them inside homes.

“That would go far beyond anything else in the world,” Allen says. “It looks like Australia is going to overcook (the regulations), and it will end up costing the consumer more.”

Reprinted with permission.

March 28, 2017 0 comment

Rooftop Solar

Rooftop Solar Installations In Australia Are Up 43% In 2017

by Guest Author March 28, 2017

written by Guest Author

Originally published on RenewEconomy.
By Sophie Vorrath

A summer of record high temperatures, heat waves and unplanned electricity outages appears to have put a rocket under the Australian rooftop solar market in 2017, with installations at end of February nearly 50% up on the same time last year.

According to the latest monthly insights report from SunWiz – based on data from Solar Choice – February was an excellent month for solar PV growth, and registrations have been clocked at 43 per cent better than 2016 YTD, driven largely by residential installs.

The February rebound marks the second best month for solar PV installs in Australia since 2013 – the best month since 2013 being December 2016.

For both those months, market growth was no doubt spurred by consumer concern and frustration, as peak power prices soared, and record-breaking heatwaves combined with fossil fuel outages to cause black-outs and load-shedding.

As we reported here on Thursday, this trend is evident in data of the final few months of 2016 in South Australia, following the statewide blackout event there in September.

In an analysis of Clean Energy Regulator data, Solar Citizens noted that monthly solar installation rates jumped 17.65 per cent from October to December, compared to installation rates from January till September.

But as the chart below shows, growth in rooftop solar installs has not been limited to South Australia, with all of the major states rebounding, while Western Australia remained fairly steady, consolidating its position as third-largest installer, behind Queensland and NSW and ahead of Victoria.

Commercial solar, which SunWiz notes is traditionally quieter over the summer holiday period, continues to grow in the minor states and territories, the report says.

Reprinted with permission.

March 28, 2017 0 comment

PV Rooftop Solar

Australian Homes With Sonnen’s Solar + Storage System Will Get Free Electricity

by Guest Author March 8, 2017

written by Guest Author

Originally published on RenewEconomy.
By Sophie Vorrath

Just months after launching its residential battery storage offering onto the Australian market, Germany battery maker Sonnen has flagged the introduction of a household solar and storage deal that threatens to disrupt the traditional retail electricity model.

The deal, called “Sonnen flat,” offers free power to households using the company’s integrated solar and storage system, including for any electricity drawn from the grid when the sun goes down and stored energy is used up.

In return, Sonnen has access to its customers’ installed battery storage capacity to use as a sort of virtual power plant, to provide grid balancing services to network operators – most of the time, without any discernible impact at the customer’s end.

“The deal is, you buy a Sonnen battery to go with your solar and don’t pay for electricity any more,” Sonnen Australia head Chris Parratt told One Step Off The Grid in an interview this week.

“It’s like a mobile phone plan, where the customer purchases the phone up front and gets a plan, if you like. Or, if you use finance, you pay nothing up front, and pay monthly installments instead.

“That’s the way we see the market going,” Parratt added. “Eventually your electricity costs will look like a mobile phone plan.”

Meanwhile, Sonnen starts to look less like a battery business and more like energy retailer, with any losses incurred by giving customers free power more than compensated for through revenue made on the balancing power market – known in Australia as Frequency Control Ancillary Services, or FCAS – where prices are higher than in the regular markets.

Indeed, in Australia’s primary frequency response market – currently dominated by gas peaking plants – prices have been known to surge past $5000/MWh when the grid suffers a sudden shortage of supply and/or surge in demand, or when gas generators game the system.

As we reported here, the Australian Energy Regulator last year found that re-bidding by leading gentailers Origin Energy and AGL Energy in the South Australian electricity market in August and September caused price spikes that loaded more than $17 million of additional costs onto consumers and other generators.

Little wonder, then, that Sonnen – which first rolled out its flat rate model in Germany in September last year and now has 6,000 battery systems in the German balancing market – is targeting Australia, with plans to offer the deal to customers here in the next two months.

Coupled with retail electricity prices that have pushed up consumer bills by more than 100 per cent over the past 10 years; a world-leading rooftop solar uptake; and the removal of premium solar feed-in tariffs, Australia’s is a market that’s ripe for disruption.

“We only started installing Sonnen at the back end of last year in Australia,” Parratt says, “but we expect to be within the top three in the market this year. Especially with (this offer). We expect to be a key player in a market that installs 10-15,000 units per year.”

Sonnen’s battery storage systems will start in Australia at about $6000 fully installed and range up to $25,000, depending on the size of the system.

Parratt has estimated that customer paybacks in Australia will run at six to nine years, depending on the size of the system installed and the solar it is coupled with.

“We have a modular system that starts at 2kWh and goes to 16 kWh in 2kWh increments,” he said. “We actually fit the battery size to the house’s consumption, that’s why we can get the six-year pay back in places like South Australia.”

And what of reports Standards Australia, along with other state regulatory bodies, are considering restricting lithium-ion battery installations inside houses and garages?

Parratt notes that while Sonnen uses Sony-made lithium iron phosphate batteries – a different chemistry to lithium-ion and purpose-built for use in homes – he’s not sure why Australia appears to be going in the opposite direction to the rest of the world on battery installation guidelines.

“There is a standard being released in Germany that allows for lithium-ion batteries to be installed in homes. So why Australia appears to be going the opposite way, I don’t know,” Parratt told One Step.

That said, he added, standards do “need to get into the nitty gritty of battery chemistries” and work out what is safe to hang on your wall and what is not.

“Ours is a very, very safe battery,” Parratt told One Step. “In Europe, we have 30,000 installations and some of those have been around since 2010, and not one fire has happened, no one has been injured. Germany has proved that they can be safe.”

Reprinted with permission.

March 8, 2017 0 comment

Solar $

Australian Solar Headed For A “Huge Year” In 2017

by Guest Author March 7, 2017

written by Guest Author

Originally published on RenewEconomy.
By Sophie Vorrath

Solar power is headed for a “huge year” in Australia in 2017, a new report has predicted, on the back of a boom in the large-scale market and a home solar and storage market that is expected to treble.

The Climate Council’s State of Solar 2016, published on Thursday, confirms solar is now the cheapest form of new large-scale power generation, as costs of the technology tumble and investment soars. c036b63d5f554990ba3781b2dd0d7914

According to the report, solar costs have plummeted by 58 per cent in just five years and look set to continue to fall by somewhere between 40 and 70 per cent by 2040.

Already, however, solar plants are delivering electricity for cheaper than new coal, gas or nuclear, the report says, at prices of around $110/MWh – a price that is expected to come down further, “significantly”, over time.

This compares to the price of new coal power – a generation source recently championed by Australia’s Turnbull government – which the report notes is on the rise, potentially reaching $160/MWh for cost of electricity. It has been put at more than double that cost with added carbon capture and storage technology.

For Australia, which has endured a few false starts on large-scale solar, the report said development was now “surging”, with 20 projects coming online in 2017 and another 3700MW in the pipeline.

On this path, the Climate Council predicts Australia will surpass 20GW of solar PV in the next 20 years, equivalent to about a third of Australia’s current total power generation capacity.

The distributed solar market was also headed for major growth, the report said, with the installation of rooftop PV and battery storage systems for households and businesses expected to treble over the course of the year.

Currently, more than 6,500 Australian households have a solar and storage system installed, the report says.

On rooftop solar, the report says South Australia and Queensland are currently competing for top installation rates, with both states reaching around 30 per cent of households with PV.

In WA, 24 per cent of households have solar PV systems, followed by Victoria and New South
Wales on 15 per cent. According to the report, the current average small-scale solar system
size is 5.34kW.

“Australia adds more solar power every year than the combined capacity of South Australia’s (recently closed) Northern and Playford coal-fired power stations,” the report says.

The report also notes that roughly 8000 Australians are now employed in solar, a sector that, globally, employs 2.8 million.

Labor’s shadow climate and energy minister, Mark Butler, has welcomed the report’s findings, describing it as good news for affordable, stable, and clean energy in Australia.

Butler has also used the occasion of the report’s release to take a pot-shot at the Turnbull government, for a policy approach he says has “threatened the creation of thousands of new jobs and an affordable and secure energy future.”

“This week we have seen the energy minister Josh Frydenberg once again trash renewable energy and continue the government’s push for taxpayer funded expensive and polluting new coal-fired power stations,” he said.

“As Andrew Stock from the Climate Council put it; ‘The government’s energy rhetoric does not match reality… global investment has moved firmly to renewable energy.”

Reprinted with permission.

March 7, 2017 0 comment

Rooftop Solar

Australia Now Has World’s First Exchange For Stored Home Solar

by Guest Author March 7, 2017

written by Guest Author

Originally published on RenewEconomy.
By Sophie Vorrath

The Australian energy market is set for a major shake-up with the launch of a major new government-backed initiative to create an open marketplace for locally generated and stored rooftop solar power to be traded between households, businesses, communities and network utilities.

Unveiled on Thursday, the Decentralised Energy Exchange — or “deX” — is being hailed as a revolutionary digital marketplace that will change the way energy is produced, traded and consumed at a local level in Australia.

The project, which is currently at the pilot phase, is being funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and led by energy tech startup GreenSync, in collaboration with network operators United Energy and ActewAGL, energy management start-up Reposit Power, and new energy retailer Mojo Power.

It will, for the first time in Australia, create an open marketplace for the value of energy generated by solar panels and stored in battery packs to be traded on a mass scale.

“Homes and businesses will be able to monetise their solar and storage assets by essentially renting them to the grid when they’re most needed,” said GreenSyncy CEO Phli Blythe.

“Imagine a single marketplace where consumers can connect and configure their energy resources, and all of the upstream value generated by these assets are automatically paid into a bank account or digital wallet.”

But perhaps most importantly, the project will shift the Australian energy market from a centralised to a decentralised model — transforming the way electricity grids are used, and removing the need for multi-billion dollar network infrastructure upgrades.

“deX will revolutionise peak electricity management and drive more effective investment in energy infrastructure,” Blythe said.

“We have lots of small ‘power plants’ on more than 15 per cent of the roofs in Australia. Getting all of these working together to support the grid is a powerful proposition for the widespread adoption of renewable energy technology and will fundamentally improve the reliability and reduce the intermittency of these resources in the energy mix.

This comes at a key time for Australia, with energy security dominating political debate and media commentary as the nation’s ageing electricity grids limp through another hot summer.

As we have reported on RenewEconomy, a number of outages in South Australia and load-shedding in New South Wales have highlighted these problems, while simultaneously deepening the political divide over renewables, and how quickly the inevitable transition to clean energy generation sources should be made.

At the crux of this divide is the political hot potato of electricity costs, which the have increased by more than 100 per cent across Australia, with some of the highest power bill increases recorded in the eastern coal-dominated states.

The Coalition argues that the Labor Opposition and many Labor state governments’ high renewable energy targets will drive electricity prices up further, while the pro-renewables camp, including many industry analysts and market participants, argue that the cost of of the shift to renewables will be much cheaper than business as usual.

GreenSync said on Thursday that deX would work to drive investment in renewable energy, while allowing utilities to avoid unnecessary, multibillion dollar investment in underutilised infrastructure.

“This is a world-first, market defining innovation that will support how energy markets work with intermittent renewables, encouraging growth in such resources,” GreenSync said in a statement.

“For GreenSync, this will be an important global transition point, evolving its load management platform into an energy marketplace.”

ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht said the Agency’s backing of projects like deX went to its primary goal of accelerating Australia’s shift to renewable energy.

“To smoothly transition to a renewable energy future, we need new technologies and markets,” he said.

“This could encourage more investment in solar and batteries, supporting the grid, reducing the need for infrastructure investment and ultimately reducing the cost of renewables in Australia.”

ACT climate minister Shane Rattenbury notes that deX is particularly good news for the nation’s rooftop solar households, many of whom would argue that the true and fair value of their contribution to the grid has not been properly accounted for.

“DeX will help us understand how distributed energy services like solar and battery storage can be valued, reflecting when and where the service is provided, and how that value can be shared fairly between customers and network businesses. This knowledge will inform our transition to a high-penetration renewables grid, both in Canberra and nationally.”

United Energy’s Greg Hannan said the exchange would bring Australia a step closer to having the kind of localised or “mini markets” that would optimise value for all parties, while managing the key issues of reliability and stability.

“This is key to creating value for energy customers in the grid of the future,” he said.

An industry discussion paper will be released ahead of the first pilot projects.

Reprinted with permission.

March 7, 2017 0 comment

Energy Storage

Demand For Tesla Powerwall Surges After Blackouts In Australia

by Steve Hanley October 18, 2016

written by Steve Hanley

On September 28, freakishly high winds toppled almost two dozen towers supporting high tension power lines near Melbourne and Adelaide, Australia. Thanks to automatic protection devices built into the grid, power to the affected areas was cut off within seconds to protect people and utility workers from from potentially lethal electric shock from the downed power lines. But the shutdown then cascaded throughout all of South Australia, an area of some 380,000 square miles. Ever since the blackout, interest in the Tesla Powerwall has surged.

Tesla Powerwall

The Tesla Powerwall is a residential storage battery designed to keep the power flowing to a home during power outages. While its capacity is limited to about 5 kilowatts of power, it’s enough to keep the lights on and to power selected appliances like refrigerators and air conditioners. It’s not the same as being connected to the grid, but with wise management it can provide backup emergency electricity for 24 hours or more.

Emily McMahon, co-founder of Off-Grid Australia in Victoria says calls about the Powerwall have jumped 30 times or more since the blackout. “People are sick of the grid in general and the high electricity prices,” she says. Her customers are interested in blackout proofing, the environment, and returns on investment from gaining energy independence. McMahon says people in Australia typically pay between $20,000 and $25,000 for a complete solar power system that includes solar panels, an inverter, a Powerwall, and installation.

Australia has been experiencing a rapid increase in renewable energy in recent years. At the time the windstorms hit last month, wind turbines were providing 1,000 megawatts of electricity to the grid. Near Sydney, a new development is equipping all homes with a complete solar power system, including a Tesla Powerwall. The community has been nicknamed “Tesla Town” as a result.

That hasn’t kept ignorant politicians from jumping into the fray, starting at the very top. According to Australian website Crikey, the country’s prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has gone so far as to blame the blackout on too much renewable energy sloshing around the grid at the time. Turnbull and his political cohorts are deep in the pocket of Australia’s extensive coal interests. Some have even suggested that Australia has enough coal buried underground to power the entire nation for 1,000 years.

Americans may recall Donald Trump making a similar statement during the second presidential debate. Politicians get their talking points spoon fed to them by their primary benefactors. Neither Trump nor Turnbull has given the slighest thought to the damage that burning coal would do to the health of the people they supposedly represent and could care less, just so long as they win elections.

In point of fact, every energy professional, including the people how operate the grid in South Australia, maintain that renewable energy had nothing whatsoever to do with the blackouts. The issue was downed power lines, not the source of the electricity they were carrying. It never occurs to these clueless so-called leaders that freakish storms are precisely what climate scientists warn will occur more frequently as alternations in the world’s climate accelerate.

As interruptions in service increase, home energy storage units whether from Tesla or from competing manufacturers will change from being a luxury to a necessity.

Source: Teslarati Photo credit: Tesla

October 18, 2016 0 comment

Going Solar PV

Clean Energy Regulator Reports Australia Small-Scale Rooftop Solar Installations Climb Upward in 2015

by Glenn Meyers December 29, 2015

written by Glenn Meyers

Propelling a global boost in renewable energy, Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator has reported small-scale rooftop solar totaled 4.59 GW in 2015.

As reported by pv-magazine, data released by the Clean Energy Regulator shows 119,000 new small-scale PV installations have taken place in 2015. While not as sizable as 2014, this number distinguishes Australia with the highest portion of residential buildings with rooftop PV globally.

The Australia small-scale rooftop solar numbers also show the nation has maintained its world lead the world in deployment of rooftop solar. Counting a December 1 calculation, Australia has reached 1.49 million small-scale PV installations. This total is based on data released by this country’s Clean Energy Regulator.

The Clean Energy Regulator was established on 2 April 2012 as an independent statutory authority by the Clean Energy Regulator Act 2011, and operates as part of the Environment portfolio.

Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) estimates the nation will have another 300 MW of large-scale PV by the end of 2015.

“Renewable energy is essential to Australia’s future economic growth and prosperity in a carbon-constrained world and to helping lower Australia’s carbon emissions. The transformation of Australia’s energy sector will require around $100 billion in investment in the renewables sector over the period to 2050.”

The CEFC Act has provided that a minimum of 50% of the CEFC portfolio be invested in renewable energy technologies, related enabling technologies and hybrid technologies that integrate renewable energy technologies by 1 July 2018.

CEFC reports on Australian solar potential

The CEFC has stated, “With the highest average solar radiation per square metre of any country in the world, and substantial cost reductions in solar technology over recent years, there is significant future opportunity for growth in deployment of solar technologies in Australia.”

CEFC has invested in both large and small-scale solar projects using solar photovoltaics. It reports the demand for solar financing continues to be strong, with solar projects valued over $3 billion.

The clean energy report shows a solid foundation for small-scale solar is in place.

Image: Rooftop solar panels via Shutterstock

December 29, 2015 0 comment

Consumer Electronics Energy Storage PV Rooftop Solar

Australia & Netherlands 2 Of The First Countries To Get Tesla Powerwalls

by Jake Richardson December 10, 2015

written by Jake Richardson

Over 1.3 million households in Australia have rooftop solar power, so it only seems reasonable that Tesla has chosen this country as one of the first that will receive its 7-kWh Powerwall home energy storage systems. They could be available as early as December of 2015, though it had been predicted they will begin arriving in 2016.

A startup named Reposit Power based in Canberra is working with Tesla to distribute the Powerwalls. The company also has created technology that integrates solar power with energy storage and it can sell stored electricity back to the grid to make money. Reposit calls the technology an energy storage and trading system.

“The idea is to buy from the grid when prices are lowest, consume as much of your own solar as possible, and occasionally sell to the markets when prices spike. This will reduce or get rid of your power bills,” said Reposit director Dean Spaccavento.

The potential to sell electricity back to the grid is intriguing: could you make enough to cover the cost of the battery system by selling electricity? If it was possible, how long would it take?

The growth of energy storage is significant for a number of reasons, but perhaps none is greater than the ability for a whole country to shift away from fossil fuels. “Australia could reach that 50% target, it just requires well-designed policies and markets that allow a transition from centralised, large-scale fossil fuels to efficient but variable renewables. Storage is a key part to make that happen. The beauty of renewables is that once you’ve managed the capital cost, there is no fuel cost. There’s an energy security there you don’t get with fossil fuels,” explained sustainable energy expert Professor Anthony Vassallo.

Also just announced, in the Netherlands, Eneco will be the first Powerwall supplier.

Tesla obviously makes great cars, but it seems that because the Powerwalls are priced much lower, they could sell in greater volume, and Tesla’s brand recognition would only increase.

Image Credit: JJ Harrison, Wiki Commons

December 10, 2015 0 comment

Market Research Solar Records Solar Research

Solar Overtakes Wind As Australia’s Number One Renewable Energy

by Joshua S Hill October 12, 2015

written by Joshua S Hill

Solar PV became Australia’s number one source of renewable energy in 2014, passing 4 GW of installed capacity, overtaking wind’s 3.8 GW.

The new figures came by way of energy insight company, GlobalData, and its new report, Asia-Pacific Renewable Energy Policy Handbook 2015, which details renewable energy policy measures and incentives throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

According to GlobalData’s accompanying press release, the report “states that renewables have become an integral part of the energy policy in Australia” — which could be argued, depending on GlobalData’s meaning here. While renewable energy is indeed an integral part of energy policy here in Australia, this is only the case insomuch as you consider the amount of time spent arguing about renewable’s place in energy policy here in Australia. There are any number of examples across Australia that show renewable energy is not an integral part of existing energy policy.

Nevertheless, recent leadership changes in Australia have bolstered renewable energy’s role in the future of Australia’s energy policy and energy mix, which bodes well for the future of the industry.

“The government recently announced the revised Renewable Energy Target (RET) to support emission-intensive industries and slightly reduced the RET from 41 Terawatt hours (TWh) to 33 TWh,” explained Siddhartha Raina, GlobalData’s Senior Analyst covering Power. “Despite this, new renewable energy capacity of 6 GW still needs to be installed by 2020.”

Despite all of the flux around Australia’s renewable energy industry over the past few years, GlobalData points to the continued growth of Australia’s solar PV industry, which in 2014 reached 4 GW of installed capacity, overtaking wind power’s 3.8 GW.

GlobalData also believes that, while solar and wind will continue their role as the two main renewable energy technologies in Australia, bioenergy is next to make a move.

“While feed-in tariffs and renewable energy target schemes, along with other subsidies and support initiatives, have had a major impact on the solar PV and wind industries, the impact of such programs on biopower and small hydro has been minimal,” Siddhartha Raina explains.

“Despite this, strong government backing is expected to promote stable growth in the bioenergy sector. Bioenergy capacity amounted to 573.9 Megawatts in 2014 and is expected to more than treble to 1.8 GW by the end of 2025.”

October 12, 2015 1 comment

Solar Projects

SunPower Launches Remote Operations For Large-Scale Solar

by Joshua S Hill October 7, 2015

written by Joshua S Hill

SunPower has announced the launch of a remote operations control center for monitoring and controlling large-scale solar power plants.

The remote operations control center (ROCC) is designed to monitor and control large-scale solar power plants that SunPower is currently operating throughout the United States (including those projects owned by its joint-yieldco company, 8point3 Energy Partners), as well as monitor solar power plants SunPower has constructed throughout Latin America, Europe, Africa, Australia, and Asia.

“SunPower’s remote operations control center is designed to optimize energy production at our solar power plants, allowing utilities and power plant owners to better manage their energy,” said Tom Werner, SunPower CEO and president. “Increasingly, utilities are adding solar to their energy mix to provide their customers with reliable, cost-effective and emission-free energy.”

The ROCC is staffed by eight employees who, by 2016, will be monitoring and controlling approximately 1.3 GW of solar power plants 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

“As an energy services provider, our ROCC enables SunPower to be a good manager of the utility grid, and enhance safety at our power plant sites,” Werner added. “It is scalable to accommodate the anticipated continued growth of our global power plant fleet.”

The launch of the ROCC will be an interesting move for SunPower, and will be intriguing to see how it impacts the company’s bottom line. In the second quarter, SunPower reported lackluster revenue of $381 million, down slightly on the first quarter and down significantly year-over-year, which saw the company provide measured full-year guidance for the first time in 2015 — GAAP revenue for the full year 2015 to reach between $1.5 billion and $1.7 billion, with a gross margin of 10% to 12%, and a net loss per diluted share of $2.35 to $2.05.

October 7, 2015 0 comment

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