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War accelerates global renewable energy transition

Russia-Ukraine war, global renewable energy transition accelerates

The start of this round of Russia-Ukraine local war will have a positive impact on the acceleration of new energy alternatives to traditional energy sources. Throughout the day today, new energy stocks showed big gains. Zhongli Group, Sunshine Power, Trina Solar, Orient Sunrise, Foster, JinkoSolar, JA Tech, Longi, Goodway, Chint Electric, Zhonghuan, and Zhonglai all closed higher. The PV 50 ETF was up 1.53%.

Natural gas prices have skyrocketed recently. This is not good news for the European region where natural gas prices have risen nearly fourfold in the past year. Natural gas is now the source of one-third of the European region’s natural gas, and geopolitics is magnifying the supply problem again. As of 4 p.m. today, the Dutch TTF benchmark natural gas futures price rose for the fourth straight session, a one-day gain of 41 percent. U.S. President Joe Biden has also said that further punitive measures will be taken against Russia. Any sanctions that restrict Russia’s access to foreign currency would upend the commodity markets for oil, natural gas and metals, crops and other commodities.

Europe has a very high local gas dependency of 90%, so at this point in time when gas prices are soaring, more industrial, power and heating users accustomed to gas will be looking for safer ways to meet their needs, and the substitution of new energy sources such as solar will be accelerated.

Wood Mackenzie has pointed out that with the surge in variable power output, Europe has four options for balancing grid operations: pumped storage facilities, natural gas-fired peaker plants. Rory McCarthy, the agency’s principal analyst, said, “For modern power systems, natural gas-fired plants can achieve full power output in less than two minutes and can be more efficient when running partial load situations, capable of supplying power for an infinite duration of generation, which is predicated on an uninterrupted supply of natural gas.”

But by 2030, battery storage systems will surpass peak natural gas-fired power plants as the least expensive option for balancing the European grid.

 Installed capacity for energy storage projects in all sectors in Europe is expected to grow from 3GW today (excluding pumped storage facilities) to 26GW by 2030 and 89GW by 2040. mccarthy notes that by 2040, Europe could have 320GWh of energy storage capacity available for balancing the power system. Most of that will come from customer-side battery storage systems. “The cost of fuel and coal-fired generation will also rise, and net-zero emissions policies will ultimately target decarbonization of all electricity market services,” McCarthy said.

Analyst Bloomberg New Energy Finance has issued a survey that notes that the growing popularity of solar power facilities in the U.S. has eaten into the operating hours of natural gas-fired power plants, requiring them to restart and shut down more frequently, thus increasing their operating costs due to fuel demand and wear and tear.

Currently, when natural gas prices are too high, investors are making more prudent decisions about the need to switch to new generation methods to avoid the problem of this high priced raw material.

Of course, the exporters of natural gas do not want to see this situation continue. They will also try to find ways to keep gas prices more than ridiculously high, otherwise exporting gas will become difficult once a situation of abandonment of use on the industrial and power side develops.

Looking at the first phase of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2014 (January 19, 2014 to March 20, 2014), the performance of broad asset classes saw a significant upswing in commodity prices, as much as 7.6%. While crude oil prices rose by 4.2% and gold prices rose by 6.1% (from Haitong Securities.) The continued high price of crude oil will also bring renewed attention to the use of electric vehicles and clean cars.

In terms of the future development of new energy, especially the photovoltaic industry, this year will continue to improve.

23 February, the relevant parties predicted that the scale of new photovoltaic installations in 2022 may increase to more than 75GW, about 75-90GW. The value compared to the National Energy Board data – 2021 national PV new installations of about 55GW, an increase of 36%-64%. At the same time is expected to 2022-2025, China’s annual average new PV installation will reach 83-99GW. 2021, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology data, China’s PV polysilicon, wafer, cell, module production reached 505,000 tons, 227GW, 198GW, 182GW, an increase of 27.5%, 40.6%, 46.9%, 46.1%. The annual export of PV products exceeded US$28.4 billion.

According to the latest research report of CITIC Capital, the domestic PV installation in January 2022 exceeded expectations, the national new PV installation of more than 7GW, an increase of 200% year-on-year. Among them, distributed PV new installed 4.5GW, up 250% year-on-year; centralized PV new installed 2.5GW, up 150% year-on-year. Upstream silicon, wafers, downstream batteries, modules, and inverters, auxiliary materials, all parts of the industry chain is generally full of orders, the start rate is not down but up. This year, the traditional off-season may not be “light”.

At this point, we expect the people of Ukraine to protect themselves and their families, to spend this special moment peacefully, and to return or find a peaceful home as soon as possible.

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New Energy PV: From grid-connected to off-grid

At  present, there are two typical applications of PV, grid-connected systems and off-grid systems. The grid-connected system depends on the grid, and uses the “self-generation, surplus power online” or “full online” mode of operation. The off-grid system does not depend on the grid, and relies on the “store and use” or “store and use” mode of operation. Off-grid systems are highly practical for households in areas without a grid or in areas with frequent power outages.

Since off-grid is a rigid demand, the profit is relatively high. Installers who do grid-connected, want to do off-grid projects, which requires a partial change in thinking, if you continue to use the idea of grid-connected to do off-grid, it is possible that the deal will not be concluded or meet the requirements of customers.

1 off-grid system can not be considered a return on investment

We invest our money in real estate, stocks, industry and other projects, we have to calculate how much money we can make every year and how many years we can pay back. Grid-connected power generation is subsidized by the state, and building a power station is an investment, so customers are most concerned about the return on investment. But when we buy a cell phone, computer, clothes and other necessities, we do not calculate how many years we can earn back the capital, and the same goes for off-grid systems. The idea of off-grid installation is likely to be cancelled by the customer. The reason why off-grid systems are not economically viable is that they cost much more than grid-connected systems.

2 off-grid system cost is high

Off-grid systems consist of PV arrays, solar controllers, inverters, battery packs, loads, and so on. Compared with the grid-connected system, more batteries, accounting for 30-40% of the cost of the power generation system, and the components are almost the same. And the battery life is not long, lead-acid batteries are generally in 3-5 years, lithium batteries are generally in 8-10 years, after which they need to be replaced.

Off-grid inverters are 1.5 to 3 times more expensive than grid-connected inverters. Off-grid inverters have a more complex structure than grid-connected inverters; grid-connected inverters generally have a two-stage structure of booster and inverter, while off-grid inverters generally have a four-stage structure, including controller, booster, inverter, and isolation, and cost about two times more than grid-connected inverters.

The overload capacity of off-grid inverters is more than 30% higher than grid-connected inverters. Grid-connected inverters are connected to modules at the front stage and to the grid at the output, which generally do not need overload capacity because few modules have output power greater than the rated power, while off-grid inverters are connected to loads at the output, and many loads are inductive loads, and the starting power is 3-5 times the rated power.

Off-grid inverter production is low, the current PV grid-connected market share of about 98%, off-grid market share of about 2%, shipments are very low, can not be automated production, raw materials and production costs are much higher.

3 off-grid system why with energy storage battery

In the PV off-grid system, energy storage batteries account for a large proportion of the cost and solar modules, but the life is much shorter than the components, the task of energy storage batteries is energy storage, to ensure that the system power stability, at night or rainy days to ensure that the load power. Off-grid systems must be equipped with energy storage batteries, this is why?

One is the PV power generation time and load power time is not necessarily synchronized, PV off-grid system, the input is the module for power generation, the output connected to the load. Photovoltaic are daytime power generation, there is sunlight to generate electricity, often at noon the highest power generation, but at noon, the demand for electricity is not high, many household off-grid power station at night, then the electricity sent out during the day how to do, to be stored up, this storage device is energy storage batteries. Wait for the peak of electricity consumption such as seven or eight o’clock at night, and then release the power.

Second, photovoltaic power generation and load power is not necessarily the same, photovoltaic power generation is affected by radiance, not very stable, and the load is not stable, like air conditioners, refrigerators, start power is very large, usually running power is less, if photovoltaic direct with load, it will cause system instability, the voltage is high and low. Energy storage battery is a power balancing device, when the PV power is greater than the load power, the controller sends the excess energy to the battery bank storage, when the electricity generated by the PV can not meet the needs of the load, the controller and the battery power to the load.

In addition to the above three points, the design of off-grid systems and grid-connected systems are also different, components, inverters, storage batteries are customized according to the needs of users, only after these changes in thinking, in order to do a good job off-grid systems.

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Concepts and operating modes of photovoltaic energy storage systems

The concept of energy storage

What is energy storage?

Energy storage mainly refers to the storage of electrical energy. Energy storage is also a term used in petroleum reservoirs to represent the ability of a reservoir to store hydrocarbons. Energy storage itself is not an emerging technology, but from an industrial perspective it is just emerging and is in its infancy.

So far, China has not reached the level where energy storage is viewed as a separate industry and supported by policies similar to those of the United States and Japan, especially in the absence of a mechanism to pay for energy storage.

What is photovoltaic?

Photovoltaic (Photovoltaic): short for solar power system, is a new type of power generation system that uses the photovoltaic effect of solar cell semiconductor materials to directly convert solar radiation into electricity, with independent operation and grid-connected operation.

At the same time, solar photovoltaic power system classification, one is centralized, such as large northwest ground photovoltaic power generation system; one is distributed (to > 6MW as the boundary), such as industrial and commercial enterprises plant roof photovoltaic power generation system, residential roof photovoltaic power generation system.

What is a photovoltaic system?

Photovoltaic power generation system can be divided into grid-connected photovoltaic power generation system and stand-alone photovoltaic power generation system according to whether it is grid-connected or not. Grid-connected photovoltaic power generation system mainly refers to the photovoltaic system that is connected to the grid and receives grid dispatch, such as various centralized or distributed photovoltaic power plants. Stand-alone photovoltaic power generation system mainly refers to a variety of independent of the grid operation of photovoltaic power generation systems, such as solar street lights, rural household photovoltaic power supply, etc. collectively referred to as photovoltaic systems.

What is photovoltaic + energy storage?

The combination of photovoltaic and battery as an energy storage device is photovoltaic + energy storage.

The working mode of photovoltaic energy storage system

Photovoltaic power generation has the characteristics of high output level in the short period of time at noon, low output level in other periods and daytime output, no output at night, energy storage technology has the ability to achieve the spatial and temporal shifting characteristics of electricity, for photovoltaic power plants to configure energy storage room to transfer the midday output of photovoltaic to other periods, to reduce the power plant output spikes, reduce abandoned light.

In the working process of battery storage system, the principle of minimizing the number of times of charging and discharging of energy storage system is to extend the service life of energy storage system. During the peak hours of photovoltaic power generation, the battery storage system is controlled to be charged and the power output of the photovoltaic power plant is cut to the peak. After the peak hours of PV power generation, the battery storage system is controlled to discharge. The discharge control of the energy storage system can help smooth the volatility of PV power output and assist system peak regulation to maximize the role of energy storage. According to the different roles of energy storage discharge can be divided into three working modes of energy storage system, which are peak shaving, peak shaving + suppression and peak shaving + transfer style

Working mode one: peak shaving

During the peak hours of PV power plant, the battery storage system is charged with the application goal of peak shaving, and after the peak hours of PV power, and during the daytime hours of PV power, the battery storage system is amplified and discharged to the lower limit of the SOE range of the battery storage system, and then the storage system stops working to ensure that the working time of the storage system is within the power generation time of the PV power plant, which does not additionally increase the working time of the PV power plant. The working time of the power station is not increased, which reduces the impact on the working arrangement of the PV power station due to the configuration of the energy storage system.

Working mode two: peak shaving + smoothing

During the peak hours of PV power plants, the charging of battery storage system is controlled with the application goal of peak shaving. The power fluctuation of large-scale PV power plant can be divided into two categories, one is the slow change of PV power plant output, such as the periodic change of PV power plant output caused by day and night alternation; the other is the sudden change of PV power plant output, such as the sudden drop of PV power plant output caused by floating cloud shading. The first round of changes is large but slow; the second type of changes is unpredictable and sudden, and the power output is reduced from full power to less than 30% of the rated value in 1~2s when it is serious. After the peak period of PV power output, to smooth the process of day and night alternation, PV power plant power drop fluctuations as the goal of controlling the energy storage system discharge, discharge to the lower limit of the SOE working range of the battery storage system, if it has entered the night, PV power plant power reduced to 0, the SOE of the energy storage system is still greater than 0.2, control the energy storage system to the rated power constant power discharge to SOE will be to 0.2, and then control energy storage system to stop working.

Working mode three: peak shaving + transfer

In the peak hours of the PV power plant, the battery storage system is charged with the application goal of peak shaving. The peak hours of PV power plant are from 8:30 to 18:30, and the evening peak of the load occurs between 18:00 and 22:00, during which the PV power plant has basically no power, and the battery storage system can be discharged to assist the system in peak regulation by controlling the battery storage system. The system SOE working range lower limit value, then the energy storage system stop working.