How Automation and Machine Learning Will Guide Solar’s Future
As helpful as it is having homes and businesses powered by solar, the goal of the industry is to reduce or even eliminate our country’s reliance on fossil fuels by replacing them with solar and wind-generated electricity. This will not only make for a more reliable grid, but security and customer savings will also see significant improvements as a result.
But, before we can look to solar to help power the nation’s electrical grid, solar needs to become more flexible. And, that’s exactly what research and development teams for the world’s largest solar system manufacturers are doing right now. Designers are implanting machine learning and advanced analytics in their products to make them more flexible.
Why Automation in Solar Is Essential
In a recent article published in Solar Power World, SolarEdge’s Lior Handelsman wrote, “Advanced analytics and machine learning can help plan for more flexibility and increase predictability to enable PV generation and load forecasting. In addition, there are certain types of events that need a fast frequency response and require local autonomy or grid-edge computing.”
With local autonomy, systems will be able to shift from load predictability to load flexibility. Rather than the system knowing what’s coming, it will now be able to use what’s coming. With greater flexibility and automation, no longer will the grid operate from the antiquated perspective of ‘dynamic supply meets predicted but static demand’ but rather deliver energy that meets what ‘smarter and flexible demand dictates while using cleaner, renewable generated supply.’
Flexibility Ensures Less Energy Is Wasted
Greater flexibility also reduces curtailment, which is when the grid’s demand is less than what’s needed to absorb the energy produced by renewable energy sources. The result of curtailment is that a substantial amount of clean energy gets wasted.
By implementing new technologies to improve flexibility, the grid will be able to automatically shift the surplus solar to times when consumption is at peak levels, so the clean, lower-cost energy doesn’t get wasted.
Flexible Solar Reduces Grid Emissions and Costs
In 2017, the U.S. government estimated that grid emissions dropped by one-percent. With a flexible grid system capable of shifting to clean energy during times of peak demand, even less emissions will be produced moving forward.
Another benefit of added flexibility is that incorporating and maintaining the grid won’t be as expensive as it would be if non-flexible solar was used. Instead of relying on grid planners to build the excess renewable generation, a flexible system doesn’t require overbuilding since demand can be realigned with the renewables’ generation patterns.
What This Means for Your Solar Business
Solar is constantly creating new technologies and systems to make clean energy generation easier, more efficient, and less expensive. The fossil fuel industry, on the other hand, is one that resides in the past, with little-to-no recognizable advancements made over the last few decades. Fossil fuels create dirty energy, whereas solar generates clean, renewable energy.
The foundation of solar, and its on-going advancements, are made with the end-consumer in mind. These are powerful pieces of information that you can incorporate into your marketing message to accentuate the full benefit of going solar.
If you’re a solar company interested in purchasing better solar leads, contact RGR Marketing today. We can provide you with verified leads that are validated and tailored to your specific demographics and requirements.
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