Anyone else at SPI 2019?

bill von novak

I got in yesterday.  There's way too much to see here - the talks alone are going to take up most of my time.

BB.

Out of Salt Lake City:

https://www.showsbee.com/fairs/55220-Solar-Power-International-2019.html

Solar Power International (SPI) 2019
Solar Power International
Date: 9/23/2019 - 9/26/2019
Venue: Salt Palace Convention Center, Salt Lake City UT, United States -Bill

bill von novak

New stuff noted so far:

There is a LOT of storage this year; about 1/4 of the show is dedicated to storage (ESI.)  And almost every solar vendor has a storage option.  LFP is slightly more popular than li-ion.

This is also the year of the half cell panel.  About 25% of the new panels I saw were half cell.  Salescritter selling points are "more efficient" and "shade tolerant."

Bifacials are still slowly growing.  Most of the majors (Trina, Panasonic, Trinko etc) have a bifacial option, and Trina was making a big deal about solar gains from reflections.  From some really simplistic math I did, it looks like the reverse side is about 70% of the efficiency of the top.  So sun striking the top converts at 20% efficiency, sun striking the back converts at 14% efficiency.  (Lesson - don't mount the modules upside down or they won't be as efficient.)