DOE Gives kWh Analytics Permission to Continue PV Reliability Research

kWh Analytics is set to continue phase two work on a $2 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under the Increasing Affordability, Reliability and Manufacturability of PV Cells, Modules and Systems award. 

The initiative, under the department’s Solar Energy Technologies Office, is aimed at extending the lifespan of PV systems.

This award enables the continuation of research the company began in 2022 into building a program for insurers to incent solar asset owners for reliability measures. Over the past 24 months, kWh Analytics has been developing ways to identify points of solar PV equipment failure and understand the resolution outcomes that bring sites back online quickly and efficiently with the end goal of creating a “safe driver discount” for reliable assets. 

To achieve this, the company says it used natural language processing of O&M service logs to learn what makes solar assets reliable. These field insights inform upstream stakeholder decisions, such as O&M preventative maintenance and spare parts strategies, thus developing a feedback loop.

“As an insurance stakeholder, we are continuously collecting and analyzing data, and looking for opportunities to incentivize reliable and resilient behavior,” says Jason Kaminsky, CEO of kWh Analytics. 

“We are grateful to the Department of Energy for enabling us to share important findings that will impact how the industry designs and operates solar PV facilities and reward those reliability measures, as we collectively work to build a reliable clean energy future.”

As kWh Analytics enters the second phase of the DOE project, the company will explore ways in which field data can inform insurers’ decisions to incent asset owners for putting reliability measures into practice. 

The company plans to publish the results of its research project next year.

The decision to further fund kWh Analytics’ research in this area is the latest milestone in the company’s strong and enduring relationship with the DOE. Most recently, kWh Analytics was awarded $2.4 million by the DOE’s Materials, Operation, and Recycling of Photovoltaics Funding Program in September.