Top 10 Trends for Renewable Energy
The last article featured solar farms and how the sun’s power is being harnessed by energy providers and fed into the grid to replace energy previously generated by fossil fuels. Over the coming few years, Renewable Energy is set to take on a prominent role as a main power source. This is driving new research and innovation in the sector, so we can expect a lot of exciting developments. Recently one of the largest providers of network energy solutions, Huawei, published its predictions for 10 trends in Renewable Energy for the next 5 to 10 years. We have picked out 5 of the most topical of these:
Unmanned PV Plants
As artificial intelligence becomes integrated into the PV (photovoltaic) modules and products are connected via the Internet of Things, the need for humans to diagnose problems and make decisions will be much less. Drones and robots will be used to inspect and carry out work in PV plants to increase productivity and enhance safety. It is expected that the PV plants of the future will be fully unmanned.
Solar + Storage
Energy storage for PV systems is expected to increase as battery costs decrease with technology advancement. By 2025, it is forecasted that more than 30% of PV systems will have energy storage.
Virtual Power Plants
Currently today, it is possible to send excess energy generated by residential PV systems back to the grid. However, technologies such as 5G will enable these residential systems to connect to a virtual power plant, rather than the grid as it exists today. This will give rise to new business models and new energy providers.
Higher Power Density
In order for solar power plants to pay for themselves quicker and generate cheaper electricity, the solar modules will have to become more efficient. They will be required to output more energy for the same size (or smaller) systems. The amount of power the inverter can output is expected to increase by more than 50% in the next 5 years.
Security and Trustworthiness
As capacity from PV plants increases worldwide and the grid architecture becomes more complex, security risks to the network of PV plants also grow. In addition, requirements around user privacy and security are also becoming stricter. This means that PV plants will need to be reliable, secure, safe, robust and private to protect both suppliers and users.
Huawei concludes that the convergence of new technologies such as 5G and cloud, Artificial Intelligence is shaping a world where everything is sensed, connected and intelligent at a speed faster than we can think!
For more information on this or other Renewable Energy solutions, please email Free-Sol Solar at info@free-sol.com