Solar technology has matured massively in recent times with the cost and payback period of commercial installations for businesses being lower than ever. This has made solar a popular option for businesses of all sizes in hopes of reducing their carbon footprint, but more importantly, their costs. Since the first commercial solar cells were made available in the 1980s, the rating size of production solar panels has risen by over 20 times and the efficiency of the electricity conversion from the panels themselves is around double. Research continues to push the technology closer to the theoretical Shockley-Queisser limit of 33.16% for single-junction cells and even higher for multi-junction cells. With solar being by far the most accessible renewable technology when considering scale, returns, and cost, I will be looking into how the commercial solar market has developed and matured since ARCO made the first step into the commercial field.
Component Technologies
Solar arguably has the biggest room for growth in the UK out of all renewables technologies. With the UK Government’s target of 70GW of installed solar capacity by 2035 (currently 17GW), the growth in size and efficiency of commercial panels is key to helping the country reach this target. There are many panels on the market rated at or above 500W of generation capacity compared to the average of 200W-300W per panel about a decade ago. Along with this growth in panel size comes the steps forward made in inverter technology. Both single and three phase inverters are now available at much higher capacities than before with the largest three phase makes being over 100kW in rating. This allows businesses to request bigger and better systems from an installer meaning they can use the energy throughout the day and become self-sufficient.
Battery technology is not far behind the other components with prices continuing to fall, making large scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) more affordable for businesses looking for consistent and reliable power, even in the event of a power outage. It is now more achievable than ever for businesses of all sizes to almost completely eliminate their electricity bills through a solar system.
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