Performance, costs, operational experience, and lessons from over 1100 PV installations

Abstract

For the past 8 years, the SEPA has played a key role in the commercialization of photovoltaics, first by managing the Technology Experience to Accelerate Markets in Utility Photovoltaics (TEAM-UP) program, and now by managing the Solar Power Solutions (SPS) program. TEAM-UP, completed in 2001, was a partnership program between SEPA, the PV industry, the utility industry, and the US Department of Energy (DOE). The new SEPA SPS program has taken a different approach with a primary focus of how key stakeholders in the public and private sectors can collaborate to harness the benefits of photovoltaics. The program issued an analysis document, the SPS Blueprint and offers competitively awarded funding to showcase PV projects to enhance critical market acceleration elements identified in the Blueprint. This paper describes the goals and results of these market acceleration programs to date.