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					</table><p>Reduced power generation because of equipment underperformance has resulted in a loss of $2.5 billion for the global solar industry, according to <u><a href="https://raptormaps.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Raptor Maps</a></u>, an analytics, insights, and productivity software provider.</p>
<p>“We are progressively losing more power and more money, with an estimated annual revenue loss of $82 million across the 24.5 GW analyzed by Raptor Maps in 2022, translating to $2.5 billion in losses for the entire solar industry. When coupled with other learnings from the field – solar assets are chronically underperforming relative to pro forma assumptions &#8211; there is an enormous financial impact that the industry needs to address,” the Raptor Maps’ Global Solar Report.</p>
<p>The report quantifies and identifies leading drivers of equipment-related revenue loss, supported by their dataset of 80 GW of photovoltaic systems across 48 countries.</p>
<p>While each solar asset is unique and the rate of anomalies varies significantly, power loss as a result of equipment anomalies has increased every year.</p>
<p><strong>Underperformance Doubles</strong></p>
<p>Underperformance due to anomalies has nearly doubled from 1.61% in 2019 to 3.13% in 2022, recording a 94% power loss increase over the last 4 years.</p>
<p>This trend serves as a cautionary tale for the future, especially as the solar industry continues to scale and equipment manufacturing efforts are being ramped up.</p>
<p>With recent legislative and geopolitical tailwinds, the solar industry has seen increasing growth.</p>
<p>For instance, in the United States, the passage of the <a href="https://mercomindia.com/inflation-reduction-act-faster-transition-clean-energy-u-s/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Inflation Reduction Act</a> earmarked $370 billion for renewable energy and created unprecedented demand in the solar industry.</p>
<p>In Europe, geopolitical and policy pressures are pushing marked progress in the shift to renewables, with the EU installing 41.4 GW of solar and the <a href="https://mercomindia.com/eu-to-expedite-renewable-expansion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">REPowerEU</a> plan proposing 320GW of new solar by 2025.</p>
<p>Power affected by anomalies is 3.13% today, but if anomaly-driven power loss continues at the current rate, that would grow to almost 6% by 2025.</p>
<p><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-50156 size-full" src="https://mercomindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Picture1-2.png" alt="" width="602" height="324" srcset="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Picture1-2.png 602w, https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Picture1-2-300x161.png 300w, https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Picture1-2-600x323.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 602px) 100vw, 602px" /></p>
<p>In the U.S. when analyzing power loss by farm size, smaller sites exhibited the most variability in power loss and the highest average power loss as a percentage of their total generation capacity.</p>
<p>This variability and power loss present a unique challenge to the consumer and industries asset managers, who must focus on how to prioritize the remediation of high-value anomalies across a vast portfolio of smaller assets.</p>
<p>In larger site sizes, smaller ranges in power loss as a percentage of total site capacity were observed, but the largest sites tend to exhibit higher average power loss.</p>
<p>Sites between 100 MW and 200 MW were 9% higher than the global average at 3.40% average power loss, and sites above 200 MW were 29% higher than the global average at 4.04% average power loss.</p>
<p>These power losses bear a heavy revenue burden; for instance, sites larger than 200 MW are losing, on average, around $4,320/MW, with some sites losing up to $12,900/MW.</p>
<p>In cases of sites larger than 200 MW, the average underperformance due to anomalies has more than tripled since 2019, growing from 1.10% to 4.04% in 2022.</p>
<p>The resulting annual revenue loss is estimated at $82 million for the 24.5 GW of assets analyzed in 2022, which translates to an average loss of $3,350/MW.</p>
<p><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-50157 size-full" src="https://mercomindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Picture2.png" alt="" width="602" height="393" srcset="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Picture2.png 602w, https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Picture2-300x196.png 300w, https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Picture2-600x392.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 602px) 100vw, 602px" /></p>
<p><strong>Polycrystalline Module Defects</strong></p>
<p>The report said polycrystalline modules are more likely to show module-level and submodule-level anomalies on inspection compared to thin film and monocrystalline modules.</p>
<p>It said the module’s age is highly correlated with the rate of defects present. For the two most common submodule-level defect categories, cell and diode anomalies, the rate of defect increases by 20-30% from Year 1 to Year 2; for cell anomalies, that defect rate increases by 495% for modules older than 5 years.</p>
<p>While analyzing sub-module defects, the report found:</p>
<ul>
<li>On average, inspections of monocrystalline modules have detected fewer anomalies than thin film modules by 41% and than polycrystalline modules by 65%.</li>
<li>Thin film modules are 3 times more likely than polycrystalline and 12 times more likely than monocrystalline modules to have physical damage (such as cracking, delamination, and warped modules).</li>
<li>Monocrystalline and polycrystalline modules face similar defect problems, with cell and diode anomalies being the most common for both.</li>
</ul>
<p>The report said that as large-scale solar installations multiply, it becomes important that the industry ensures that it is delivering on its promises in terms of both power production and profitability.</p>
<div class="saboxplugin-wrap" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" itemscope itemprop="author"><div class="saboxplugin-tab"><div class="saboxplugin-gravatar"></div><div class="saboxplugin-authorname"><a href="https://cms.mercomindia.com/author/gautamee-hazarika/" class="vcard author" rel="author"><span class="fn">Gautamee Hazarika</span></a></div><div class="saboxplugin-desc"><div itemprop="description"><div class="designboxt">
<p><img class="alignleft" style="border-radius: 50%;height: 50px;margin-top: -4px;border: 1px solid #00b451" src="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Picture1.jpg" width="50" /></p>
<p><strong style="text-decoration: underline">Gautamee,</strong> Staff reporter at Mercom India<br />
<a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/gautamee-hazarika/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">More articles from Gautamee.</a><br />
<br />
<a href="gautamee@mercomindia.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gautamee@mercomindia.com</a></p>
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<div class="authorboxn"><img class="alignleft" src="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Picture1.jpg" width="102" height="102" /><a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/gautamee-hazarika/" rel="noopener">Gautamee</a> is a reporter at Mercom India. Prior to Mercom, Gautamee was working as a multimedia news journalist at ThePrint in New Delhi. She has received her Bachelors in English Honors and Masters in English Literature from St.Stephen&#8217;s College, University of Delhi.<a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/gautamee-hazarika/" rel="noopener">More articles from Gautamee</a></div>
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Revenue Loss due to Solar Equipment Underperformance Rising Globally: Report

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