Petra Solar RFI Response Document Innovative
Petra Solar RFI Response Document
Innovative Renewable Distributed Energy Technology
Prepared for New York Energy Highway
PETRA SOLAR
300-G CORPORATE COURT
SOUTH PLAINFIELD, NJ, 07080
May 30, 2012
PETRA SOLAR CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY
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Table of Contents
2.2 E XPERIENCE , M ARKET A VAILABILITY AND S UITABILITY OF P ROJECT T ECHNOLOGY ............... 4
P ROJECT C ONTRACT /R EQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (RFP) S TATUS ......................................... 23
1.
Respondent Information
Respondent Name: Petra Solar Inc.
Respondent Address: 300-G Corporate Court, South Plainfield, NJ, 07080
Primary Contact :
Joe DeLuca, VP Product Marketing, Petra Solar Inc.
Tel: 732.379.6962
Fax: 908.755.0369
E-mail: joe.deluca@petrasolar.com
Ruba A. Amarin, Product Manager, Petra Solar Inc.
Tel:
Fax:
E-mail: ruba.amarin@petrasolar.com
Company Overview:
Petra Solar is a technology company, focused on providing reliable, cost effective smart energy solutions. Founded in 2006, by Dr. Shihab Kuran, Petra Solar is revolutionizing the electric supply industry by pioneering smart solar technology, which combines generating solar energy with building a smart grid infrastructure that improves the reliability and efficiency of the electric grid.
Smart solar leverages technology developed by a 14-year solar and satellite systems research and development program in conjunction with NASA and the U.S. Air Force. Petra
Solar applied the highly reliable satellite technology to the electric supply industry in an innovative way and created the SunWave™ smart solar solution. Today, over 20 patents are granted or pending.
Smart solar is truly the next generation of solar energy that builds solar in a reliable and cost-effective way that mitigates challenges faced by traditional solar. Smart solar is the best insurance for maximizing solar performance and long-term grid stability. The investment in solar provides the additional benefit of deployment of a smart grid communications infrastructure, which is the foundation for other smart grid applications such as outage management, theft of service detection and street light control for energy efficiency programs. Smart solar systems with integrated smart grid technology provide twoway command and control between each of the installed units and a control center, enabling managing very large distributed deployments of smart solar energy solutions from a centralized location over a secure network. Petra Solar not only invests in innovation to develop technology but also to create jobs. Innovation puts people to work as demonstrated by the company’s growth from 15 employees in 2009 to about 175 at the end of 2010.
The global company has realized considerable commercial success. Petra Solar gained market leadership by launching the world’s largest solar installation of its kind in 2009, a 40 megawatt project with Public Service Electric & Gas of New Jersey. The company is currently in phase one of a deployment to install smart solar systems on 20,000 rooftops in Jordan – the largest distributed rooftop solar deployment in the world.
The company believes in public/private smart solar partnerships that can put people to work, implement a sustainable, smarter and more reliable electric grid, and upgrade our
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3 power infrastructure to meet the needs of the 21st century. For more information about
Petra Solar visit www.petrasolar.com
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2.
Project Description
2.1
Project Type, Size and Location
Petra Solar offers new technologies that combine distributed solar energy generation with
Smart Grid communications and improved grid reliability features to create a utility grade solution that delivers the highest economic value for solar power. Petra Solar’s innovative
SunWave™ system provides distributed clean solar energy that ties directly into the electric grid, and does not require an upgrade to either the current transmission or distribution infrastructure, eliminating grid interconnection issues faced by traditional solar systems.
One of the key advantages of the Petra Solar solution is its flexible grid integration architecture that enables installation on existing assets that can hold one or more solar modules such as distribution and streetlight poles, rooftops, and other available structures.
For the purpose of this RFI response, the focus will be on Petra Solar’s innovative polemounted distributed energy solution, which enables existing infrastructure to be leveraged for solar deployment, in turn allowing for rapid deployment without the typical siting, interconnection and permitting costs. Additionally, a SunWave deployment inherently provides a wireless smart grid network that provides metering of solar energy production within 1% accuracy, system status and monitoring, and management and control of the
SunWave units.
Petra Solar’s state of the art single solar panel smart energy module (SEM™) also provides significant benefits and higher economic value over traditional solar systems including:
Safety, with automatic shut-off when power is absent
5%-25% increased energy harvesting
Lower operation costs and no scheduled maintenance requirements
Unique model for incremental deployment and immediate commissioning for faster return on investment
Value-added smart grid infrastructure
Ability to increase grid reliability and efficiency by deploying distributed reactive power
Reduced transmission and distribution (T&D) line losses
Petra Solar also offers the IllumiWave smart street lighting energy management solutions, which enable municipalities and other providers of street lighting to implement energy efficiency and conservation measures that at the same time drive substantial cost savings.
The IllumiWave street light control system is equipped with two-way smart grid wireless communications, enabling remote control and management of widely distributed street
lights from a central location. Users can remotely schedule street lights to turn off or dim at pre determined times for energy conservation savings. Valuable energy consumption data and analytics as well as alerts for bulb outages or abnormal bulb operation are provided through a secure web-based communications module of the Petra Solar IntelliView™ smart energy management system. Organizations can use this smart energy management platform for load control and disaster response programs.
IllumiWave lighting control systems can work independently or in conjunction with dawn dusk sensors. For street lights with existing dawn dusk sensors, benefits are realized by simply replacing the traditional sensors with IllumiWave devices. The IllumiWave devices create a meshed smart grid communications network, which can work in tandem with Petra
Solar’s SunWave pole-mount smart solar systems to transform street lights from a cost center into a revenue generator over the life of the system. Note that IllumiWave on its own can provide significant energy and maintenance savings. When combined with the SunWave distributed Smart Solar system, benefits are twofold: IllumiWave leverages the infrastructure of the solar system and it provides value added services for the economics of the solar deployment. On its own, benefits come from reduction in the typical usage of the lamp, thereby prolonging the life of the lamp resulting in maintenance savings which can almost be on par with energy savings.
Size of Proposed Project : 100 MW of PV solar.
Proposed Project Location : Utility poles and municipal street lights distributed throughout the state of New York.
Earliest Date Project Can be Operational : Installations can begin within 90 days after receiving purchase order (PO).
2.2
Experience, Market Availability and Suitability of Project Technology
Through the Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G) “Solar 4 All” initiative, Petra Solar is deploying 200,000 SunWave smart solar units, creating a distributed 40 Megawatt (MW)
“power plant.” The New Jersey utility expects to complete the installation of 200,000 solar units by 2013. The interaction of smart grid technology and solar generation will enable
PSE&G to enhance the reliability of its delivery of electricity to customers. This is the largest distributed solar electric project under construction in the world today.
Petra Solar’s SunWave System is a distributed solar power generation and management system. PSE&G’s deployment of the SunWave System is expected to generate solar power cost effectively and benefit from a smart grid communications system and grid reliability enhancement tools that are unique to the SunWave system. The modular SunWave system simplifies system design, accelerates installation, reduces balance of system cost & enables faster return on invested capital. Given that the SunWave solution is shovel-ready, coupled with the smart-grid and grid-reliability benefits, Petra Solar provides the best ROI and the most cost-effective utility-scale distributed solar technology option on the market today.
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As part of Petra Solar's international presence, the company is engaged with many countries around the globe and is helping them achieve their goal of an energy independent future and develop the solar and Smart Grid markets in these new regions around the world. The growing global demand for diversified energy portfolios that include renewable resources, along with job creation, provides a tremendous opportunity for Petra Solar throughout the world. The company is deploying smart solar systems in Australia as part of the Magnetic Island
Solar Suburb initiative being undertaken by Ergon Energy and as part of the Townsville Queensland
Solar City project. Through initiatives carried out on Magnetic Island, Ergon Energy aims to reduce peak demand and electricity usage, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save customers money and defer network investments. Petra Solar's project, including the SunWave Energy Solution installed on rooftops in Magnetic Island, Australia will enable Ergon Energy to benefit from the solar energy production as well as the grid monitoring and control and reliability features of the product.
The increasing demand for solar energy and grid reliability in the Middle East has provided a tremendous opportunity for Petra Solar to grow in the region. As a result, Petra Solar has been very active in exploring and developing solar project opportunities throughout the larger Middle East and North African (MENA) countries. Petra Solar is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the large growth potential in the Middle East. For example, Petra is engaged at the leadership level in Jordan and Bahrain advising on energy policies. As a result of these engagements, Petra has a contract with the Jordanian Government to promote the use of solar energy through its “Let Jordan Shine” plan. The company has signed agreements to install Smart Solar systems in Jordan, and is currently in phase one of a deployment in Tafila to install distributed solar with integral smart grid systems on 20,000 rooftops throughout the Governorate – the world’s largest rooftop solar deployment.
Petra is also launching large scale Smart Solar systems in Bahrain. The Kuwaiti government is an investor in our company. In addition, the company has existing partnerships for UAE,
Qatar, KSA, Turkey and many other markets in the region. Our focus in the region is broader and includes solar farms, distributed and smart solar, off grid and hybrid solutions, smart grid and energy conservation solutions. In summary, Petra Solar is a leader in intelligent energy solutions and energy system design.
2.3
Summary of Proposed Technology
SunWave Solar Smart Grid
The Petra Solar product ecosystem comprises the SunWave™ Pole-Mount solar energy
system (Figure 1) which itself comprises a single solar panel, the Petra Solar Smart Energy
Module (SEM™), which together makes an AC-Module and racking for pole attachment. Also included is the Petra Solar SunWave Communicator™ which is part of the data management and control system for the solution. Finally, the IntelliView™ Smart Energy Platform is shown
as a means of access to system data as well as for management and control. Figure 2
shows a conceptual view of the interaction of all of these components.
Smart grid capabilities are a key component, differentiator and customer value-add as part of the Petra Solar product ecosystem. Solar solutions and smart grid applications are amplified by synergies when the two are combined. The combination enables immediate remote diagnostics and management of the output of a solar solution, and the use of smart
grid technology for the solar solution enables the management and control of the solar energy generation, all included with the deployment. This is a key feature for safety and performance, allowing solar energy output to be controlled or even halted depending on the state of the utility grid.
To learn how Petra Solar combines solar and smart grid technologies to enable solar energy deployments, and how Petra Solar provides reliable and sustainable solutions for electricity and energy efficiency, refer to the video at http://www.petrasolar.com/company/explore-petra-solar .
F IGURE 1: P ETRA S OLAR S UN W AVE P OLE -M OUNT S YSTEM .
F IGURE 2.
P ETRA S OLAR P RODUCT E COSYSTEM .
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Smart Grid Applications Expansion: Overview
The Petra Solar Smart Grid has been implemented in a modular fashion with standardsbased technologies. The forethought in this architecture enables additional applications to be integrated into the network to add significant return on the investment. The vision for
leveraging the Smart Grid investment is shown in Figure 3.
The added applications include:
• Electric/gas metering from side of house or on pole
• Streetlight control for off-peak consumption reduction
• Demand response with smart grid connected thermostats in-home.
• Demand response with smart grid connected appliances in-home
• Electric Vehicle charge control for peak electricity consumption management
All of these applications would integrate into the wireless mesh network that is deployed with the SunWave solar systems, adding significant without deploying a second network.
The data would pass through the Petra Solar Smart Grid network and can be passed to other enterprise systems, such as a Meter Data Management system at the Utility, or can be integrated into future modules of the Petra Solar IntelliView Platform.
Lighting
Controls
SunWave
Communicator™
SunWave™
AC System
AMI
Meter
Smart Grid Connected Home
Linked network f or Demand Response, PHEV Mgmt,
Distributed Energy Mgmt
Wide Area
Networks
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Utility Central Monitor and Control Station
F IGURE 3.
L EVERAGING S MART GRID INVESTMENT .
Customer benefits driven from the Smart Grid Applications are presented by:
– Access to information
– Ability to manage energy consumption
–
Convenient interconnection of distributed renewable generation
– Reduction in outages; fewer losses and inconveniences
Smart Grid Applications Expansion: Streetlight Control
An optional Smart Grid add-on application is a Streetlight Control system which leverages the Smart Grid network deployed as part of the SunWave system to deliver further energy savings to the utility’s efficiency initiative. This system includes a Smart Grid connected
device which is installed in place of the traditional dawn/dusk sensor in the standard twist
and lock connector on the top of typical streetlight fixtures as shown in Figure 4. This device
and associated control system can be included with new high efficiency lighting deployments or retrofitted onto existing streetlights during SunWave installations.
With this system and associated Smart Energy Platform application the streetlights can be scheduled to turn on/off, or transition to 50% dimming (depending on light type), during offpeak hours to provide very significant energy consumption reduction.
F IGURE 4.
I LLUMI W AVE S MART L IGHTING E NERGY MANAGEMENT S OLUTION .
The integration into the larger Smart Grid is shown in Figure 5. When deployed across the
city, the energy savings will be very significant with a highly predictable return on investment.
F IGURE 5.
S TREETLIGHT C ONTROL A RCHITECTURE .
Petra Solar Network Operations Center (NOC) and Services
Petra Solar’s Smart Grid services feature data analytics coupled with highly skilled management of critical energy systems. This premiere offering is comprised of the Network
Operations Center (NOC) services and the IntelliView Platform.
Petra Solar’s NOC, shown in Figure 6, monitors, controls and manages smart energy assets
with advanced monitoring facility staffed by highly skilled operations and technical support engineers. The NOC also expands its smart energy services offering from support of
SunWave smart solar systems to the option for full remote operations of Petra Solar designed Smart Grid networks. Utilities can leverage the expertise of the Petra Solar highly trained technical staff to be the first line of defense in managing, monitoring, controlling and troubleshooting the system. This model allows utilities to focus on other key functions of
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their operations, while deriving full benefits from their investment in the Petra Solar designed smart grid system.
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F IGURE 6.
P ETRA S OLAR N ETWORK O PERATIONS C ENTER .
Data sheets for the Petra Solar SunWave Pole-Mount system, Communicator, IllumiWave and Smart Energy Services are provided in Appendix A, B, C and D respectively and on the
Petra Solar website as well.
3.
Project Justification
This section describes how the presented solution by Petra Solar can address the following
State’s objectives and goals:
• Creating jobs and opportunities for New Yorkers.
Petra Solar invests in innovation to develop alternative sources of energy, but also to create jobs. Innovation puts people to work as demonstrated by the company’s more than 10-fold increase in jobs since the spring of 2009.
Petra Solar is committed to growing jobs locally and is a strong advocate of tying local consumption to local manufacturing. In fact, Petra Solar has developed its own inventive, highly scalable and asset light, modular assembly line to manufacture SunWave solar solutions.
In keeping with the company’s commitment to return ratepayer and taxpayer support, the company will create new manufacturing facilities in jurisdictions in which it does significant business. As a result, major contracts with utilities are expected to result in the creation of jobs to staff local manufacturing operations.
• Contribute to an environmentally sustainable future for New York State.
Petra Solar helps create a better environment for our children and future generations by offering clean renewable energy solutions. Petra Solar’s development model allows streamlined implementation by utilizing existing street light and utility poles and other accessible structures. This approach greatly reduces environmental impacts, land use, infrastructure development costs, siting and permitting – allowing utilities to profitably finance solar through direct ownership
• Apply advanced technologies that benefit system performance and operations.
Benefits driven from the SunWave Solar Smart Grid are presented by:
Increased Energy Efficiency and Harvesting
The one-to-one relationship between the SEM and the solar panel provides several benefits, including increased system efficiency and energy harvesting. SunWave systems provide an increase in energy harvesting capability compared to traditional string type systems because the power output is optimized on a per panel basis, maximizing overall system power generation. With string inverters, partial shading of any one panel will result in reduced power generation of the entire system and maximum power point tracking is less effective.
This “bottleneck” effect occurs because solar panels in a DC string are wired in series
versus the parallel connection of the SunWave systems. This concept is illustrated in Figure
7, demonstrating the difference between the parallel and serial configurations by using a
flashlight comparison. Note that, although shading is demonstrated in the figure using a tree, the primary mechanism for shading is from passing clouds.
F IGURE 7.
P ETRA S OLAR AC M ODULE P ERFORMANCE C OMPARISON TO T RADITIONAL DC S TRING S OLAR A RRAY .
To quantify the benefits of PV AC-Module approach versus a series connected PV system
(string inverter approach); tests were conducted by OKE-Services of the Netherlands to capture the improved power harvesting capability of AC PV Modules versus string inverters
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11 under various shading conditions: Very Lightly Shaded , Lightly Shaded , and Moderately
Shaded
.
From the measurements conducted by OKE-Services of the Netherlands, it is very clear that in shaded PV AC- Systems in which PV-Modules are connected in parallel using an AC
Module approach always have a higher energy yield than PV Modules connected in string (in series). Of course, the increase of energy harvesting will depend on the shading situations in the area of deployment. It is expected that in very cloudy areas, or dusty regions, the impact
of shading will be more than sunny and clear areas. Table 2 gives the summary of energy
harvesting gains when measured under various shading conditions.
T ABLE 1.
S UMMARY OF E NERGY H ARVESTING I MPROVEMENTS WITH AC M ODULE S YSTEMS
Shading Conditions Very Lightly shaded
AC-Module system power gain, minimum [%]
AC-Module system power gain, nominal loading [%]
2 – 5%
Lightly
Shaded
10 – 20%
Moderately
Shaded
0 – 50%
10 – 20% 20 – 40% 30 – 40%
From the above data, and using of the results of the very lightly shaded conditions, the average gain of an AC Module system is in the range of 5-25%. However, as the study illustrates, with increasing shade the energy gain of a PV AC-Module system "can easily be
100% to 400% higher than the string ".
In conclusion, it is clear that even very lightly shaded PV systems in which AC-Modules are connected in parallel, such as Petra Solar SunWave Solar AC-Modules, the energy harvesting gain is considerably higher than PV modules connected in a string (in series).
Smart Grid Communications for System Monitoring and Management
Also critical to the new generation of solar energy systems is the combination of solar with
Smart Grid technologies. The union enables remote monitoring and control of a “virtual power plant” which can be distributed across a large enterprise facility, an entire state, across the country, or spanning the globe as Petra Solar systems do today.
A smart grid communications infrastructure is automatically created upon installation of
Petra Solar SunWave systems. New York Energy Highway’s investment in solar energy solutions for street lighting will provide the additional benefit of deployment of a tightly integrated two-way wireless communications platform. This platform will enable New York
Energy Highway to monitor and control the operation and health of each individual solar panel as well as the entire system. Petra Solar’s SunWave solution enables remote monitoring of solar energy generation effectively functioning like a smart meter.
Additionally, the solution monitors the voltage of the electric grid connection and the overall health of the system.
SunWave solutions are remotely monitored and managed via the Petra Solar IntelliView
Platform which enables “management by exception” through an automatic alert system.
1 HenkOldenkamp , “PV-wirefree versus conventional PV-systems: detailed analysis of difference in energy yield between series and parallel connected PV-modules”, 19th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference,
Paris, France, June 2004
The energy platform can be accessed remotely for viewing and control by New York Energy
Highway or City operations personnel and/or directly by Petra Solar.
Improve Grid Reliability
When a large amount of solar energy generation is concentrated into an electric grid feeder, the systems can cause power quality issues on that circuit due to sudden fluctuations of power output which can occur with passing clouds. States with progressive solar policies, such as New Jersey and California, are beginning to experience this issue now as their deployed solar capacity now becomes significant.
Measurement of the power output from utility scale solar installations are presented in
Figure 8, provided by Southern California Edison. These types of power variations from Solar
systems can cause voltage fluctuations and even flicker on the electric grid. This may lead to power outages or poor performing equipment for the electricity customers along that feeder.
2000 2 MW PV Plant Production
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
-200
6 8 10 12 14
Time (Hour)
16 18 20
5-Mar-09 19-Mar-09 24-Jun-09
F IGURE 8.
2 MW PV S OLAR GENERATION PROFILES DURING 3 DAYS IN SOUTHERN C ALIFORNIA .
The SunWave technology developed by Petra Solar under the Department of Energy contract is specifically intended to mitigate such issues and truly deliver the next generation of Smart
Solar energy. The next generation of SunWave technology, called GridWave™, integrates advanced algorithms which sense the abnormal voltage fluctuations on the electric grid caused by sudden loss of solar system power output and reacts with Reactive Power compensation to keep the grid stable.
Benefits driven from the Smart Grid Applications are presented by:
Direct Energy Savings
With IllumiWave features of ON/OFF control or optional dimming, the power consumption of lamp is directly reduced. For example using traditional dawn dusk sensors, each light is on for an average of 12 hours a day. If the operational hours can be reduced to 6 hours for example, by commanding through a schedule via Petra Solar’s IllumiWave and IntelliView systems, Energy consumption in such case is reduced by 50%, and customers can predict their savings and balance it against annual budgets for energy spending.
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Prolonged Life of Bulb (lamp)
With the bulb being operated with fewer hours on a daily basis, the specified life of the lamp remains the same in hours, but multiplies in years. A prolonged lamp life results in lowering of maintenance costs.
ON/OFF or Optional Dimming on Demand or Scheduled Controls
IllumiWave provides the control capability for lamps to turn on or off, or optionally dim, based on schedules or instant commands. Often times, traditional photocontrols are affected by dust, birds, and other items obscuring the visibility of the sensor, leading to lights operating at times out of expectation. IllumiWave can control the light based on commands sent outside of the photosensor control, even when an abnormal functioning photosensor is detected. This results in lamp operations within measurable patterns and greater predictability required for budgeting.
Accurate Outage Location Specification
A benefit of automated bulb outage detection is the ability to pinpoint the exact location of an outage, and dispatch to the maintenance crews. Having accurate information for workorder generation is highly beneficial for route planning, and also reduction in wasted truck rolls and labor costs.
Asset Management
Upon deployment of the IllumiWave system, accurate data will be recorded and tagged to the asset of the lamp, pole and general location. This provides a permanent base for entities to track their assets, and save time with future audits needs.
Quantify Investment Savings
IllumiWave provides the kWh consumption data, by measuring the actual energy consumption of each lamp. This allows organizations to quantify base consumption of the lamp and resulting savings from intelligent lighting control.
By combining IllumiWave Intelligent Lighting Control with SunWave Smart Solar installation, organizations can benefit from leveraging: installation costs, RF network design analysis, and network infrastructure costs. Additionally this combined solution converts each light pole from a traditional energy consumer to a revenue generator and energy conservation platform, thereby being a holistic solution to meet renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy security mandates, all in one.
RF Network Design
Petra Solar ensures a highly reliable communications architecture with each SunWave smart solar deployment. IllumiWave benefits from this process as part of the combined solution. A link budget analysis is performed taking into account terrain and clutter which may affect signal propagation. Thereby useful information is provided for thorough analysis for placement of the SunWave Communicator gateway.
Network Infrastructure
The SunWave Smart Solar solution offers the ability to add many applications such as the
IllumiWave Intelligent Lighting Control, using the same base networking infrastructure, such as the SunWave Communicator gateway, backhaul and databases. This provides additional savings in installation, maintenance and overall costs for the incremental system.
• Maximize New York State electric ratepayer value in the operation of the electric grid.
– Petra Solar’s highly distributed nature of the SunWave system enables a large amount of renewable generation to be added to the grid while maintaining grid stability.
– No investment in electrical grid infrastructure upgrade is required for integration of a large amount of renewable generation.
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No new structures need to be constructed or no open green space is used.
• Adhere to market rules and procedures, and make recommendations for improvement as appropriate.
The Petra Solar solutions fully comply with industry standards and market rules.
Recommendations for improvement to state policy to enable this innovative technology to be deployed in NY State are as follows:
– Deregulated State – Fundamental policy change at PSC to allow IOU’s to own renewable generation
–
NYCERDA – Expansion of program to include utility scale projects. Funding requirements make utility scale projects ineligible for incentives, reducing the financial viability of our solution in NY – NYCERDA is an organization that manages the NY clean energy funding but the model is focused on small residential and commercial projects (<50kW for commercial, <25kw for non-profit, <7kW for residential):
– http://www.nyserda.ny.gov/en/Page-Sections/Renewables/Solar-Technologies.aspx
4.
Financial
• Prospects of a private-public partnership
There are opportunities for private-public partnership depending on the state policy changes that can be achieved to support utility scale deployments and methods of funding agreeable by the NYPSC.
• General financial structure and funding options
New York State utilities and/or municipalities would purchase the equipment and the installation services to install system on their respective utility/lighting pole assets.
New York State utilities and/or municipalities would own and operate the systems.
For utility ownership, these systems are funded through the typical rate based recovery mechanism for asset investments.
For municipality ownership, financial structure could be a lease purchase option or power purchase agreement with a third party.
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5.
Permit/Approval Process
The Petra Solar Pole-Mounted SunWave solution does not require any of the typical siting, permitting or interconnection assessments and approvals. Because the solar modules are connected at the secondary voltage level in a highly distributed fashion, this innovative system enables very rapid deployment without the added cost and time delay of traditional siting, permitting approvals and environmental assessments.
6.
Other Considerations
Lower Operation and Maintenance Costs
The standalone distributed nature of the SunWave design also reduces operational and maintenance expenditures since there is no single point of failure for the overall system.
Unlike traditional string inverter installations where a single inverter failure can take an entire solar array (or a large portion) out of service, taking the system down for days at a time, failure of a single SunWave unit will not impact rest of the system.
In the event maintenance does need to be performed, the system can automatically alert the operations or maintenance staff via the wireless communication system. The decision can then be made to service the unit immediately, or defer until crews are in the area for other needs. Additionally, each SunWave unit can be easily unplugged for maintenance with no impact on the rest of the system or service interruption.
Unique Model for Incremental Deployment and Immediate Commission
Since the SunWave Pole-Mounted solar energy solutions are incrementally deployed and commissioned, as each AC module is installed, it is brought online, generating energy immediately. This enables the rapid incremental sale of energy, capacity and RECs as applicable to the system owner and region.
Lessons Learned
Petra Solar has gained tremendous insights from managing the end-to-end deployment of systems worldwide of various sizes and configurations in different conditions. Petra Solar has leveraged this experience to refine our installation and project execution approaches, product manuals, and for bringing continuous improvement to our product design. In addition, experience from similarly sized deployments as well as larger deployments confirms the management by exception approach used by Petra Solar’s network operations personnel for our distributed smart solar systems that are deployed globally. For example, analysis with our key customers has shown that Petra Solar systems have both a very low probability and a very low impact of failure, which means it is usually more efficient to combine the maintenance of a group of systems rather than troubleshooting each one individually, resulting in lower maintenance costs. Also to maintain low maintenance costs it is more efficient to not use dedicated maintenance personnel but rather perform the maintenance tasks during installation process and during standard streetlight or distribution network maintenance activities post installations. Another proven benefit to the municipality or utility owner/operator, is the additional information provided from the pole mounted systems during storm restorations, beyond the normal information typically available from
distribution SCADA or trouble call management systems. This information was used to confirm outage information gathered from customer calls and other sources during last year’s major storms that caused large numbers of power outages in the North Eastern US.
7.
Property
New York State utilities and/or municipalities would purchase the equipment and the installation services to install system on their respective utility/lighting pole assets, which are located on existing right-of-ways. No new structures need to be constructed and no open green space is used.
8.
Projected In-Service Date and Project Schedule
Process:
Petra Solar will be the provider of solar photovoltaic and associated smart grid capabilities including products and data management services. The delivery of all the SunWave Pole-
Mount system parts will be to a central site for pre-staging. Trained personnel or qualified subcontractor would then be responsible for installing the systems on the poles. The
SunWave ‘mount and play’ system mounts in less than 30 minutes on distribution and street light poles and allows easy access to the pole for periodic maintenance without interfering with other equipment on the pole. For wooden distribution poles, the mounting system will be attached via specially designed brackets using center drilled bolts. Non-wood pole (metal, fiberglass and concrete) poles utilize industrial grade band-straps to attach the solar system to the pole. Interconnection is made with a jacketed AC output cable directly to the electric grid. Refer to Petra Solar’s website for a typical installation example video: http://www.petrasolar.com/videos/image/2-installation-in-less-than-30-minutes#fwgallerytop
Timeline:
Petra Solar’s delivery of SunWave Pole-Mount solar energy and IllumiWave solutions is within 12 weeks ARO for volume purchases. This includes the detailed engineering, design and procurement. The SunWave system and IllumiWave pole installations can occur at a rate of approximately 2MW per month enabling the 100MW to be deployed in ~4 years. Test and commissioning occurs incrementally as each system is installed on a pole.
9.
Interconnection
Unlike a traditional central site solar farm, Petra Solar’s distributed pole-mounted solution does not require the traditional siting and interconnection selection and evaluation process.
Each solar module is connected to the secondary voltage distribution grid without the need for step up transformers and is therefore connected very close to the customer’s electrical load. This aspect ensures the ability to deliver the energy and capacity to the end load points while reducing distribution and transmission losses associated with centralized or less distributed solar PV installations. The distributed nature of the resulting scattered configuration also minimizes the intermittency of the solar PV generation relative to centralized solar farms.
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Since each solar module is monitored individually via the SEMs revenue grade accuracy, the overall system economics can be further enhanced by selling the SRECs in addition to selling the energy and capacity.
10.
Technical
Petra Solar SunWave pole-mount system is designed, analyzed and tested based upon a 25year system design life.
Petra Solar will provide a warranty for the installed SunWave Pole-Mount system to be free
from defects in materials and workmanship as outlined in Table 2.
Product
SunWave System
SunWave Communicator
Solar PV Module
T ABLE 2: W ARRANTY S UMMARY
Limited Warranty Period (from installation)
Five and Ten years available
Five (5) years
Pass through of manufacturer warranty– typically 10 year limited product warranty
Five (5) years IllumiWave
The PV modules (solar PV panels) also come with a typical 25 year limited power warranty that ensures the nominal rating at Standard Test Conditions will remain at 90% by year 12 and 80% by year 25. The solar module product warranty and power warranty will be passthrough warranties provided by the OEM.
11.
Construction
New York-based entities will be responsible for assembling the system together, keeping inventory count and installing the system on the poles. These activities will create different levels of skilled jobs within the state.
For utility owned or municipality leased scenarios, the likely contractual arrangement during construction will be installation contracts between the system owner and qualified construction firms who possess unionized labor force properly trained to work on streetlight and distribution poles. Petra Solar would contract with the system owners to provide the system engineering, equipment, installation and operations training and ongoing network monitoring and energy management services.
The SunWave Pole-Mount solution can be deployed one at a time and the system can be later expanded or repurposed to another site, without large redesign or cost penalties. This modularity also provides the ability to fully populate all potential areas with solar generation without the cost of adding a central inverter for each configuration. In addition, the systems can be as easily undeployed at end of life. However, the systems are not taking up any land or roof space and therefore, are not required to be removed at all, or can be scheduled into the normal street light maintenance program for removal with other work occurring in that
area. This prevents the need for a specific effort focused only on panel decommissioning.
Ultimately removal/repurpose options would be further defined once the ownership approach is decided.
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Operational
• Projected or guaranteed project availability and/or energy production over project life
The projected energy production for the full 100MW deployment would ramp up during the four year construction period to reach a full system production level of approximately
119,940 MWh in year four. Over the 25 year economic life of the project, the average annual production level is projected to be approximately 103,480 MWh, which is enough energy to power 9,000 homes each year and eliminate the emissions of 71.355 metric tons carbon dioxide per year. This annual energy production would also eliminate annual greenhouse gas emissions from 13,991 passenger vehicles. The actual production levels will vary depending on the locations the smart modules are deployed within New York and on variations from the optimum installation guidelines.
Assuming 50% poles with the IllumiWave streetlight control device, this result in 33,000
MWh saved per year, which would eliminate 23 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year and annual greenhouse gas emissions from 4,462 passenger vehicles.
• Safety and emergency considerat ions
Safety is a paramount consideration in any solar power deployment. Understanding and reducing or eliminating risk to people and property, and liability for all partners, must be a requirement for any solar deployment. Petra Solar SunWave Pole-Mount solar solutions clearly enable the safest solar photovoltaic (PV) systems since the output voltage is equivalent to typical residence or building voltage and the need for wiring and interconnection are limited. In contrast, a DC string in traditional solar systems typically outputs greater than 600V DC under load and remains energized as long as exposed to the sun, creating daytime safety concerns for workers, and especially for first responders in the event of an emergency.
Additionally, all Petra Solar SunWave Pole-Mount solar solutions have built-in intelligence, communication, and emergency disconnect functions at each solar module which provide an even safer environment. Per the UL1741 and IEEE 1547 standards, once the main power switch is turned off at the building or grid breaker, every Pole-Mount solar module rapidly disconnects. Similarly, if the grid otherwise becomes de-energized, perhaps as a result of an accident, component failure, or lightning strike, every Petra Solar Pole-Mount module rapidly disconnects. The Petra Solar AC outputs are automatically de-energized and individual modules can be safely removed.
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13.
Socio-Economic
• Potential benefits to and adverse impacts on the local economy
Petra Solar revolutionized the distributed solar and smart grid industry by pioneering Smart
Solar technology that combines distributed solar energy generation with smart grid communications and improved grid reliability features to create a utility grade solution that delivers high economic value for solar power. An independent industry expert performed an extensive study and lifetime economic analysis of Petra Solar’s SunWave system. A comprehensive economic model was developed that incorporates real world data from multiple utilities. This model proves SunWave delivers one of the lowest lifetime economic costs and Levelized Costs of Electricity (LCOE) for solar energy.
• Potential impacts on real estate and property values
Petra Solar’s innovative SunWave™ Smart Solar system provides distributed clean energy that ties directly into the electric grid, and does not require an upgrade to either the current transmission or distribution infrastructure, eliminating grid interconnection issues faced by traditional solar systems. One of the key advantages of the Petra Solar solution is its modularity and flexible grid integration architecture that enables installation on existing
“stranded assets” that can hold one or more solar modules such as utility and municipal streetlight poles and other available structures such as rooftops, transportation assets, etc.
This non-invasive approach preserves natural beauty and conserves valuable land.
• Impact on jobs, such as retention, creation of new jobs (temporary and permanent) and retraining opportunities
Petra Solar is committed to advancing global production of renewable energy and helping utility companies, municipal and state bodies to develop a smarter and more reliable electric grid, reduce energy usage and create jobs in clean energy. Petra Solar investments in innovation will put people to work as demonstrated by the company’s more than 10-fold increase in jobs since the spring of 2009. Petra Solar will create new manufacturing facilities in jurisdictions in which it does significant business. As a result, major contracts with utilities are expected to result in the creation of jobs to staff local manufacturing operations.
• Public safety concerns
Public safety concerns are addressed next for the SunWave system:
– Made of high quality, fully tested materials
Glass on solar panel is tempered safety glass lined with backing material
Keeps glass in place even if it breaks
The panels are made from solid materials, so if they are broken nothing leaks out or gets emitted
– Extensive laboratory testing
Continuous hot and cold temperature cycling, outdoor exposure and high humidity testing ensure that the solar units can withstand the elements – both normal and extreme
Mechanical load testing ensures that the units can withstand wind, snow, and ice loads. But in reality, snow does not accumulate on the panels. Because of the way they are angled, the fact that they have a smooth coating, and that they emit warmth, any snow quickly melts or falls off the panels. Large amounts of snow and ice do not accumulate and remain on the panels.
The Solar Panel design was even tested with equipment which shoots ice balls at the units at over 80MPH to be sure that they can withstand the impact of large hailstones!
– Withstands high winds
The racking system is designed to withstand wind speeds up to 110MPH. The design is closely analyzed for strength and durability to meet the applicable building codes of the respective location.
In addition, the design process includes a testing procedure in which the entire unit is mounted to a pole in a wind tunnel. During this testing the unit is subjected to a wind speed of 110MPH to ensure it can withstand the real environment. The wind direction is rotated 360 degrees around the unit to provide a test from all angles.
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No emissions
There are no environmentally harming emissions from the solar panels
The wireless radios are very much like a wireless broadband router in many homes today. In addition they use less energy and transmit at a lower power level than a typical handheld cellular phone
– Patent pending racking system – easy to install and safe
The racking system which attaches the solar system to the pole was designed by highly trained mechanical engineers to meet or exceed the most stringent requirements of the electric utility industry .
The pole attachment structure has also been analyzed by professionally licensed engineers as a testament that it meets the wind and snow/ice load requirements for a respective State.
– Electrically Safe
The systems are certified by a third party to meet UL requirements.
A single solar panel is only approximately 35 volts which is a very low DC voltage and poses no harm even if a person was to break through the glass and intentionally directly touch the solar cells underneath.
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The solar system metal parts are all electrically grounded as required by the
National Electric Safety Code (NESC) which ensures that the unit is safe to touch if a utility worker were to touch it with bare hands.
• Tourism impacts :
All of Petra Solar’s mass distributed solar deployments have gained significant media attention, which attracts the public to gain a firsthand view of this unique initiative.
• Aesthetic issues : No Impact.
• Estimated impacts on real estate and property values : No Impact.
• Environmental Justice considerations
The Petra Solar SunWave Smart Solar solution will generate electricity in New York in a clean, renewable, safe way without using precious land or disrupting animal habitats.
Through generation of clean power with the SunWave systems, Petra Solar is eliminating the production of thousands of metric tons of carbon dioxide that would otherwise have been produced by traditional methods. The SunWave units deployed in New Jersey alone will generate enough power to eliminate more than 36 metric tons of carbon dioxide emission.
This is the equivalent of removing 6,320 cars from the roadways for a year. Additional clean energy benefits accrue when considering the reduction in other pollutants that would have been released from equivalent fossil fuel energy generation.
• Smart growth considerations
The Petra Solar SunWave Smart Solar solution will make New York more energy-secure by diversifying its sources of energy, especially critical in the case of unforeseen natural disasters or increasing fuel prices. The proposed solution will also achieve energy independence by reducing reliance on foreign imports and fossil fuels.
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Financial
• The likely financial plan and potential funding sources that would be needed for project success, including long-term contracts, structure and duration required
Financing for the state wide deployment would be derived from a combination of investor owned utilities (per rate base filings) and third party lease and/or PPA financing for the municipality owned systems. Petra Solar has worked with top tier financial institutions to offer 10-15 year operating lease options for major credit worthy US municipalities and would leverage that experience and relationships to offer leasing and PPA options to municipality customers in NY State.
• Name of potential Project Sponsor(s), if applicable, and Sponsor(s) financial commitment to the project
Potential Project Sponsors would include some of the top tier financing firms that Petra
Solar has worked with for other clients as leasing or PPA providers.
Other Prospective Sponsors would include one of the major utilities that we have worked with to deploy a pole-mounted smart solar demonstration system in New York.
• Projected amounts of energy and capacity to be produced or delivered; identification of potential ancillary services and environmental attributes that may be available for sale or delivery
T ABLE 3: P ROJECT B ENEFITS S UMMARY
• Potential sources of project revenue
Sources of revenue for either the PPA provider or utility owner would be the sales of energy, capacity to the respective markets in the NYISO and the potential sale of SRECs. In addition to revenue from these sources, municipalities with IllumiWave on their streetlights could expect to benefit from reduced energy consumption and lower maintenance costs as estimated in the table above.
• Projected range of pricing for project products
The price of the solar generated energy can be estimated based on the average on-peak day ahead wholesale hourly energy values from the NYISO. Similarly the value of the capacity can be estimated using recent auction prices for wholesale capacity from the ISO. The value of environmental attributes such as solar renewable energy certificates (SRECs) will be driven by the regional compliance REC markets.
• Risks of price changes due to changes in prices for commodities, manufacturer quotations and other materials and services
Petra Solar believes that the PV module prices have stabilized and should stay relatively flat over the life of this project rollout.
• Anticipated incentives, such as applicable tax incentives and impact on pricing
The 30% federal investment tax credit will apply.
• Options to reduce pricing and pricing uncertainty
Committing to the large scale rollout at the starting of the project will enable the best material pricing possible.
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15.
Environmental
The environmental benefits for solar energy are many, for this source of energy is pollution and noise free and depends solely on the abundant sun’s energy, where every hour the sun beams onto the earth is more than enough energy to satisfy global energy needs for an entire year. Petra Solar adds to the already known solar benefits by offering clean renewable energy solutions, which helps create a better environment for our children and future generations. Petra Solar’s development model allows streamlined implementation by utilizing existing street light and utility poles and other accessible structures. This approach greatly reduces environmental impacts, land use, infrastructure development costs, impacts to soil, water and air resources, impacts to vegetation, wildlife, wildlife habitat, and sensitive species, siting and permitting. The Petra Solar solution is also emission-free given the fact that are no environmentally harming emissions from the solar panels, which reduce the impacts from green house gases and other air pollution emissions.
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Project Contract/Request for proposal (RFP) Status
The project has not been submitted to a New York State agency or authority in response to a
Request for Proposal before.
17.
Public Outreach and Stakeholder Engagement
• Anticipated stakeholder groups and affected individuals
The NY electricity rate payer, the NY Public Service Commission (PSC) and NYSERDA.
• Public outreach plan
Petra Solar has always been involved in educational and community outreach programs to help educate the communities about the benefits of renewable energy and other related topics. Below are few examples of previous Petra Solar engagements:
Education Outreach:
• Sponsored “Powered by the Sun,” a New Jersey education campaign and creative writing contest for K-5 th graders that promotes the best of New Jersey and builds renewable energy awareness in grade schools. This curriculum-based learning in science and language arts literacy was well received by teachers and children alike.
• Edison Institute Foundation – Thomas Edison National Historical Park Laboratory,
West Orange, New Jersey– provided solar learning tools for hands-on-activities for
students that visit the Laboratory complex. Students learn how solar energy is transformed to electricity to power equipment.
Community Outreach:
• Present solar energy awareness as civic organizations and renewable energy events in and around New Jersey to raise awareness of the benefits of alternative energy.
• Raise Community awareness of the PSE&G Solar for All project through Q&A facts and videos explaining the project as the pole-mounted solar panels were installed throughout the PSE&G territories in New Jersey.
• Address community concerns of the pole-mounted solar panels: safety, load shedding due to snow, climate, etc.
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Appendix A: Petra Solar SunWave™ Pole-Mount Data Sheet
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Appendix B: Petra Solar SunWave Communicator™ Data Sheet
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Appendix C: Petra Solar IllumiWave™ Smart Lighting Energy
Management Solution Data Sheet
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Appendix D: Petra Solar Smart Energy Services Data Sheet
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