Full article by Brian Lynch available in PV Magazine.
Underscoring what some call the solar industry’s “systemic overestimation bias,” kWh Analytics found that the average solar asset underperformed its target weather-adjusted production by 6.3% between 2016 and 2019 (early life); one-quarter of the projects that were studied missed their production targets by more than 10% after accounting for weather.
These data points are unsettling, but are they surprising? After all, what accounts for the industry’s overly optimistic bias towards over production?
In short, self-interest. When the developer, EPC company, and long-term owner are all financially motivated to assume generous production, they generally will. The inevitability of real-world data crashing this party was bound to happen.
A recent IEA renewables report reiterates how solar has evolved beyond being an accessory in the nation’s energy mix to being the lowest-cost, highest-growth energy generation source going forward.
This inflection point represents an opportunity for the industry to shift its attention away from constant cost-out and toward putting our collective effort into building projects that reliably generate cost-effective clean energy.
The ever-increasing deployment of solar assets can’t be contained. For the health of the whole industry, we owe it to ourselves to deploy better projects.