Workshops
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How might leading utilities and stakeholders make community solar better? That is the question the CSVP asks. We ask it in our own team research, as we document industry best-practices and model the outcomes of new technical and marketing innovations. And we ask it in workshop settings, where we engage team members, utilities, guest experts, and stakeholders around key parts of the question, how to make community solar better.
Each workshop represents a step toward the CSVP goal of developing a replicable high-value community solar program-design process. We present workshop summaries here in reverse chronological order, to focus attention on our own “lessons learned.” While our conclusions and recommendations continue to evolve, we have developed useful insights and materials at each step along the way. |
CSVP Workshop 4
Community Solar Solutions Program Design Workshop
Sacramento Municipal Utility District • August 3-4, 2016
This workshop brought Utility Forum members from six utility organizations, plus internal program stakeholders from SMUD and CSVP team members together to take a new look at community solar program design. Members were encouraged to think outside the box in increasing solar value in the four areas of CSVP's focus. In addition, a streamlined approach to economic analysis, aimed at justifying a competitive, locally based community solar program design was presented. This approach, called Filling the Cost Gap (and subsequently, the price gap) focuses on addressing the tensions among internal utility stakeholders and on including some values that are fairly hard to monetize in the program Business Case. Summary material from this workshop will be added as it comes available. It also will be included in final iteration, on this website in late fall 2016.
| final_2016_08_03_community_solar_solutions_agenda.pdf |
CSVP Workshop 3
The Value of the Solar Triple Play
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory • August 28, 2015
NREL Senior Research Engineer Bryan Palmintier shared an emerging view of the dynamic nature of the value of solar with participants in the CSVP Workshop.
This workshop focused on the value of matching distributed PV with demand response (DR) and energy storage in the context of a utility’s community solar program. Participants from the CSVP team joined experts from NREL, SMUD,
City of Palo Alto Utilities, Clean Power Research, and Lawrence Berkeley Lab’s Demand Response Research Center to discuss how DR and storage options may add value by addressing solar variability directly, at the local level. Other strategies, from distribution engineering and operational flexibility, through regional-market functions, also were discussed.
The group agreed that there is an optimal scale, which is often at the distribution-circuit level, for capturing the greatest integration value through solar plus DR and storage. Workshop participants also reviewed the CSVP’s early-stage Triple Play Value Estimator tool (for release in 2016), which will be the first to assess the individual and combined measure-value of solar plus DR and storage. Recognizing the lessons of earlier value-of-solar model development, they concluded that the tool should aim first to support a shared understanding of what drives the value of a Solar Triple Play, rather than to fix an exact number to that value. Unconventional values, such as the value of customer retention, may be included, too.
Some materials from this workshop are still works-in-progress, and will be shared via the Library and Decision Framework webpages of this site as they are completed.
Downloads
City of Palo Alto Utilities, Clean Power Research, and Lawrence Berkeley Lab’s Demand Response Research Center to discuss how DR and storage options may add value by addressing solar variability directly, at the local level. Other strategies, from distribution engineering and operational flexibility, through regional-market functions, also were discussed.
The group agreed that there is an optimal scale, which is often at the distribution-circuit level, for capturing the greatest integration value through solar plus DR and storage. Workshop participants also reviewed the CSVP’s early-stage Triple Play Value Estimator tool (for release in 2016), which will be the first to assess the individual and combined measure-value of solar plus DR and storage. Recognizing the lessons of earlier value-of-solar model development, they concluded that the tool should aim first to support a shared understanding of what drives the value of a Solar Triple Play, rather than to fix an exact number to that value. Unconventional values, such as the value of customer retention, may be included, too.
Some materials from this workshop are still works-in-progress, and will be shared via the Library and Decision Framework webpages of this site as they are completed.
Downloads
CSVP Workshop 2
Strategic Program Design for Community Solar
Sacramento Municipal Utility District • June 22-23, 2015
Visiting Utility Forum members and SMUD program staff worked with CSVP to sketch a community solar offer that could compare favorably with leading rooftop offers, while adding value through solar-plus companion measures.
Members of the CSVP Utility Forum—representing six utilities at various stages of program development—joined SMUD staff to take an in-depth look at strategic community solar program design. Utility Forum members convened a half-day early with the CSVP team and with Stephen Frantz, SMUD community solar program lead, Roopali Shah, SMUD strategic market development manager, and Jon Hawkins, manager of advanced technology and strategy for PNM. Once up-to-speed on CSVP and specifically on the process for SMUD, Utility Forum participants engaged with SMUD staff in early-stage program design. The combined group applied new thinking in three focus areas (high-value solar design and procurement, market development, and integrated program strategies) to the development of three strawman program proposals. In-depth discussion of these strawman program models helped SMUD to prioritize their design options. As a result, SMUD selected one model for initial development. Utility Forum members also gathered information and insights for their own community-solar programs. In addition to the sample content posted here, see the Library for CSVP white papers that have been finalized with input from discussions at this workshop.
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Downloads
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Participants worked in groups representing three different strawman program proposals, and applied this model for developing strategic community-solar offers.
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CSVP Workshop 1
Project Kick-Off Meeting on High-Value Community Solar
Sacramento Municipal Utility District • February 18, 2015
The CSVP primary utility partner is the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD). The utility has been a pioneer in community solar and is now committed to expanding and improving its program. This one-day meeting established the basis for collaboration. It involved members of the CSVP team with internal stakeholders—cross-departmental staff from SMUD—coordinated by its Distributed Energy Resources group. Participants shared their assessment of the utility’s risks and opportunities in relation to community solar. At this workshop, the team provided an update on the elements of high-value community solar and engaged SMUD participants in outlining preliminary decisions and data needed to set up the processes for our work.
Downloads
Downloads
- History of SMUD Solar Shares Program
- Presentation Introducing the High-Value Community Solar Design
- Graphic: Options Map for High-Value Community Solar