Durango Solar Evolution with StorEdge
Dan Diehl
SolarEdge, a manufacturer of solar inverters, has officially partnered with Tesla to be the exclusive provider of inverter technology for their up coming Powerwall. It looks like all SolarEdge inverters will also be backwards compatible with the new Powerwall. This is exciting news as self-generation of electricity moving into the next phase. Initially the Powerwall is being marketed as backup power for grid tied solar systems, which is a great reason to invest in the technology since the Durango area can have outages in rural and urban areas. I hear a lot of interest in backup solar power in the Durango area and this is a product that I think I will be able to offer with confidence. StorEdge can also be used to increase self-consumption and reduce peak demand. In the Durango area these two features are not yet economically applicable since there are no residential demand charges... yet. For commercial customers in the area the possibility of reducing peak demand can shave quite a bit off of a bill. Some commercial electric bills are 50% demand charge so if that peak demand can be reduced they could save a lot and have backup power for any outages.
Where I think things will get interesting with StorEdge is when projects are limited on solar output because of infrastructure deficiencies on the utility side (think old, small wires that are at capacity because they were installed in 1950 when there were only two houses on the street and now there are 30). If the StorEdge can be set to limit the amount of power fed back into the grid, perhaps larger projects could be approved without costly upgrades to the utility infrastructure; paid for by the utility customer wanting to install solar.
Another use of StorEdge down the road could be the option to defect from the grid entirely. I personally don't want to see things go this route because I think that grid tied solar has many benefits and could add much resiliency to the existing power grid in the Durango area for solar and non-solar customers alike, but it might come to pass that this is the most economical decision to make. This would mean no base rate charge for the meter, no rate change surprises down the road such as demand charges, and no approval needed from the utility. The Rocky Mountain Institute has been talking about this for some time now and StorEdge is definitely pushing things in that direction. This is an exciting development and looks more and more promising as the details emerge.