The future of solar energy

Gregg Patterson of PV Powered, Inc examines how the utility industry will manage the growing deployment of PV to their grids.

Can you tell us more of the SEGIS program’s significant promise for accelerating the penetration and smooth integration of distributed generation (solar) onto the utility grid?
Gregg Patterson. SEGIS addresses the challenges of significant distributed PV deployment onto the US electric grid. It is a great example of government working hand-in-hand with the industry to drive innovation and support the growth in clean energy. The program was a competitive process that started with proposals from more than 20companies and resulted in the selection of five. We are honored that the PV Powered-led team was selected for the largest award.

Can you tell us about the company's team and its efforts?
GP. We assembled a team of experienced leaders from the utility industry including Portland General Electric, Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories and Sensus. As the level of distributed solar increases, there will be a need for PV systems to provide their host utilities with much greater awareness and control. PV systems currently installed in commercial rooftop applications must disconnect from the grid at the first hint of instability, but as PV system penetration increases this is not an effective solution for the host utility or the system owner. In 2010 we will be demonstrating the application of AMI infrastructure and synchrophasor measurements to enable intelligent control over how PV systems respond to grid instability. Additionally, the PV Powered team is developing mitigation techniques that will smooth the ramp rates of PV systems, which are caused by passing clouds and have achieved initial success in forecasting PV system energy production for one-hour and six-hour time frames. Wind forecasting played a significant role in enabling large-scale wind power penetration and we believe that forecasting PV production is less complex and will have similar results for enabling industry growth.

Do you believe that the solar inverter will be the intelligent interface between distributed generation resources and the smart grid?
GP. The inverter truly is the intelligent node of a distributed solar PV system. The sophisticated power electronics in a solar inverter are the logical and most cost effective platform to overlay the two-way command and control infrastructure required to remotely manage distributed solar power within a utility portfolio paradigm. With the ability to monitor and control their distributed solar resources, utilities can then begin to develop strategies to use advanced features including low-voltage ride-through, VAR and frequency support, and a variety of additional ancillary services to maintain or improve power quality and reliability. The inverter provides the scalability and standardization that the industry needs for distributed solar power to grow from an unknown and potentially destabilizing factor on the grid, to a significant component of our renewable energy portfolio

Can you tell us more about PV Powered?
GP. The team we have assembled at PV Powered has been relentlessly focused on designing and building the most reliable solar inverters in the industry. We took out a clean sheet of paper and designed a commercial inverter platform that will deliver 20-30 years of reliable operation. Our industry-leading innovations have brought new materials, reliability modeling and design rules from industries where uptime is a business requirement. We have validated these products through accelerated life testing and in the field with an installed base of more than 15,000 inverters. We were the first inverter company to provide our customers with a 20-year warranty and will be introducing a 30-year warranty on our products for the utility industry. Our new 260kW inverter with 97 percent efficiency is the building bloc for our new MW platform that is an ideal platform for the larger commercial and utility scale distributed solar installations that our customers are designing today. 

Gregg Patterson is President and CEO, for PV Powered, Inc. Prior to joining PV Powered, Mr. Patterson was a Vice President of Hewlett Packard within their extremely successful Printing and Imaging Group. His responsibilities at HP included general management of $1 billion businesses spanning both enterprise and consumer segments and direct involvement in mergers and acquisitions, successfully leading the acquisition and integration of several key companies bought by HP.