The complimentary report examines the cost competitiveness of solar in a post-subsidy world and the importance that tariff design plays. The paper analyzes commercial scale solar in Southern California and concludes that solar energy can provide a discount over utility rates with and without incentives, but depends heavily on the presence of solar-friendly utility tariffs (Figure 2.7 and below). These are typically tariffs with low demand charges and high daytime energy prices.

You can download a free copy of this short report (10 pages), here.

Well, this will be Genability’s first time making a presence.  On Wednesday afternoon, Genability’s Eric Danziger will be presenting on an NREL sponsored panel titled “New Software Tools to Reduce PV Installer Soft Costs”.

Eric will be discussing Genability’s current Solar Savings solutions, as well as a sneak peek at some new Genability products.  Also presenting are two other SunShot companies, EnergySage and Simuwatt, as well as the National Fire Protection Agency.

And once we start collecting tariffs for a particular utility,  we capture all of their available tariffs.  This ensures that when you request tariff for a location or utility, you see all the available choices.  Once coverage for a utility is initiated, we continuously monitor the tariff rates for rate changes and tariff revisions.

Beyond prioritizing the largest utilities, Genability has made a special effort in both solar friendly states (we cover 100% of California, 98% of New Jersey).  We also have 100% coverage of utilities that offer competitive electric supply in deregulated markets.

What about the long tail?  We are constantly working on the long list of munis and coops that serve the less populated parts of the U.S.  We work with our customers with data coverage service level agreements (SLAs) or anticipated rollouts to ensure that they have all the tariffs they need at launch.  If you need a specific utility’s tariffs and we don’t have a data coverage SLA, we can get a utility’s tariffs entered as a Managed Service request.

Genability has captured complete rate data for over 300 utilities in the U.S., covering nearly 90% of electric customers.  We are adding more and more everyday, so if you didn’t find the utility you looked for last time you logged into Explorer check us again.  And if you have a request, send it our way (support@genability.com) and we’ll let you know when it becomes available.

It was a bit of a long shot, but we had #15 Iona College of NY upsetting UCLA in the final game with an Avoided Cost of Power of 19.62 cents versus 15.58 cents. On the “bright” side, we did select one of the Elite 8 Winners.  Thanks to Michigan with an Avoided Cost of Power of 13.48 cents, the Solar gods didn’t lead us totally astray.

You can see the status of our bracket below.  Luckily we didn’t have any money on this!

Some people fill out their March Madness brackets based on mascots, others use team colors.  At Genability, we’ve picked each game based on the highest Solar Avoided Cost, or the amount of energy that you avoid buying from the electric utility because it’s provided by your solar system.  Using our Value of Solar tools, including Likely Tariff and baseline profiles, we’ve calculated the Avoided Cost of Power for each school and used that figure in determining the winners.  You can see our full bracket below.

If we leave it to the powers of solar, this year’s NCAA champion will be 15 seed Iona College of New Rochelle, New York with an Avoided Cost of Power of 19.62 cents.  It was a nail bitter with Iona upsetting UCLA in the final game at 19.62 cents versus 15.58 cents.

Stay tuned and we’ll let you know how our solar bracket matches up.

The U.S. Virgin Islands is a great place to vacation. What’s not so great are the island’s electricity rates.  Rates in this popular vacation spot are among the highest in the U.S.  The Islands rely primarily on imported fossil fuels to power their energy needs and given their remote location this sometimes leads to shortages and therefore blackouts.  With the energy grid often stretched, high fossil fuel costs and increased reliability concerns, there’s greater appeal and demand for distributed generation.

One thing the Islands have no shortage of is sunlight!

Genability recently analyzed the tariffs belonging to the local island’s utility, Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority, and found that the solar avoided costs approached over 50 cents per kWh.  In the rest of the U.S., opportunities present themselves when rates are around 15-20 cents per kWh.  As rates continue to rise and solar prices continue to decrease, expect to see more solar panels when you’re sipping your Mai Tai on your next Caribbean vacation.

The San Francisco Bay Bridge has become the world’s largest LED light sculpture.  The Bay Lights Project will shine every night for the next two years.

The cost to keep the lights on?  About $15 a night or $11,000 for the full two years.  That’s not too bad.  With traditional incandescents lights, the approximate electricity cost would be about 5x that at $75 per night.

PVSyst Integration (and PVWatts Improvements)

No longer do you need to decipher and reformat PVSyst file outputs to get it into an Genability account. Genability now accepts PVSyst files in their native format, at the click of a button.  We accept the PVSyst file through the profile upload link (picture above) and transform it into annual hourly data for FYE 2011 through 2013.  This makes it easy to match your modeled solar production to your electric usage profile.  For the full details on how we interpret PVSYst output check our Help Center.

We’ve also updated our PVWatts integration to return a third year of solar production – FYE 2013.  You can now compare PVWatts modeled production to your customer’s most recent utility bill.

Account Ownership and Status

Genability has added a number of new attributes to accounts that make it easier to track and find your accounts when you have multiple users and many projects within your organization.  You can now set the following attributes on an account:

• Account Owner
• Type (Customer, Potential, Target, Archetype)
• Status (Active, Inactive and Deleted)

Once set, you can use these attributes to find and sort your accounts.

Stay Tuned.  We’ll be rolling out more features next month and a full product launch in mid May.

Genability Assists Parks with Energy Cost Savings Data

Genability recently worked with Parks Associates to identify these and other related statistics for their new report on “Business Models for Energy Services”.  The report takes an in-depth look at energy consumption behavior, efficiency programs, demand response / energy management programs, and home automation devices for the residential user. And more importantly, with our help they looked at the cost and savings implications of these.

Significant Opportunities Ahead in Home Energy Management

The study included a survey of residential homeowners and their view on home energy management and connected appliances.  According to the report, over 30% of homeowners never look at their daily electricity usage patterns and less than 4% are enrolled in any type of energy management program.  As connected appliances enter the home, these trends are starting to change.  According to utilities, the major barrier to growing the residential energy management space is that programs previously lacked a compelling economic value proposition.  Genability is at the center of this.  By providing home energy management providers with the data and tools to uncover hidden energy purchase value, homes are able to understand the pricing variability and the cost savings opportunities.