Modeling photovoltaic solar farm site suitability using a multi-criteria evaluation in Southern, Ontario, Canada

Canada’s solar energy industry has seen significant growth in recent years. More specifically, southern Ontario, Canada’s most densely populated region, hosts over 100 industrial-scale solar farms. These large arrays of interconnected solar panels convert incoming global horizontal irradiance into electricity. This study is a location-based analysis investigating the suitability of southern Ontario’s lands for hosting solar farms. The objectives are: (1) determine the most applicable variables and methods that are replicable in the southern Ontario region; (2) identify and analyze the amount and location of suitable areas; and (3) understand and explain any discrepancies between the locations of existing solar farm power plants and optimal locations. This research produces a land suitability model of southern Ontario’s solar farm capacity. It utilizes an analytical hierarchy process, a type of multi-criteria evaluation, in order to identify criteria, classify and weigh variables, and overlay inputs. The data employed are incoming solar radiation, cloud cover, land use, hydro transmission lines, major road networks, slope, and cultural areas. The results suggest much of the northern portions of southern Ontario are not well adapted for hosting solar farms, while large parts of southwest and west-central are very suitable or mostly suitable. In particular, a west-central area remains untapped for solar farming, despite being highly suitable. These results are then compared to the approximate locations of existing solar farms, and discrepancies are discussed.

Modeling photovoltaic solar farm site suitability using a multi-criteria evaluation in Southern, Ontario, Canada

Canada’s solar energy industry has seen significant growth in recent years. More specifically, southern Ontario, Canada’s most densely populated region, hosts over 100 industrial-scale solar farms. These large arrays of interconnected solar panels convert incoming global horizontal irradiance into electricity. This study is a location-based analysis investigating the suitability of southern Ontario’s lands for hosting solar farms. The objectives are: (1) determine the most applicable variables and methods that are replicable in the southern Ontario region; (2) identify and analyze the amount and location of suitable areas; and (3) understand and explain any discrepancies between the locations of existing solar farm power plants and optimal locations. This research produces a land suitability model of southern Ontario’s solar farm capacity. It utilizes an analytical hierarchy process, a type of multi-criteria evaluation, in order to identify criteria, classify and weigh variables, and overlay inputs. The data employed are incoming solar radiation, cloud cover, land use, hydro transmission lines, major road networks, slope, and cultural areas. The results suggest much of the northern portions of southern Ontario are not well adapted for hosting solar farms, while large parts of southwest and west-central are very suitable or mostly suitable. In particular, a west-central area remains untapped for solar farming, despite being highly suitable. These results are then compared to the approximate locations of existing solar farms, and discrepancies are discussed.

A Transition Towards Localizing the Value Chain of Photovoltaic Energy in Saudi Arabia

The present paper draws attention to the importance of localizing the value chain of photovoltaic solar energy in Saudi Arabia based on the country’s vision for 2030 to meet the expected increase in energy demand. This paper describes various obstacles and enablers and shows the critical factors that restrain the development of the value chain of photovoltaic solar energy. In this paper, different phases of upstream and downstream activities of the photovoltaic industry value chain related to the current situation in Saudi Arabia were examined and analyzed. This paper further examines the capabilities of the local content of photovoltaic solar energy to determine the scenarios that can be adopted to enhance the photovoltaic solar energy industry. This paper analyzes the expected significant positive impact of localizing the value chain of the photovoltaic solar energy industry on the socioeconomic development, job creation, and technology transfer in Saudi Arabia. The paper concludes with recommendations to facilitate the expansion of the photovoltaic solar industry in Saudi Arabia.

Givings and ISDS

Foreign investment is associated with efficiency, economic growth, and jobs. Investors emphasize the benefits of potential projects, but also ask for regulatory givings to ensure economic returns and to minimize their exposure to host-country risks. At times, international organizations have likewise highlighted both the benefits of foreign investment and the importance of incentives to attract new projects. If states were to implement these business-friendly regulations, investors might then come in, but many would count on investment treaties and ISDS to interpret and enforce sectoral regulation, representations, or specific commitments. Disputes related to the 2001 Argentine crisis and the Spanish solar energy industry show that in such circumstances, when a controversy leads to ISDS cases, arbitrators often put foreign investment relations within a transactional model, making regulatory reforms more difficult if projects fail, local expectations are disappointed, or circumstances drastically change.

Jurisdiction shopping and foreign location choice: The role of market and nonmarket experience in the European solar energy industry

Several countries provide policy support to specific sectors in order to facilitate industry transitions. While industry-support policies stimulate the growth of their target sectors, little is known about how such policies engender heterogeneous international strategies. In this article, we investigate how industry-support policies influence foreign location choices. We argue that firms engage in jurisdiction shopping, choosing to invest in countries with more generous policy support, but that this tendency varies markedly across firms. Specifically, we suggest that firms’ nonmarket experience exacerbates the effect of policy support on location choice, whereas market experience has less of an impact. Further, we propose that some firms view generous policies more skeptically than others, depending on the nature of their nonmarket experience. We test and find support for our predictions using a longitudinal dataset of foreign investments of firms entering the solar energy industry in the European Union. Our findings indicate that supportive policies stimulate the energy transition, attracting in particular foreign entrants diversifying into renewables or having more policy experience. At the same time, they suggest that adverse policy changes in one country affect how firms assess policies in other countries, highlighting the need for policy coordination at a supranational level.

PV System Predictive Maintenance: Challenges, Current Approaches, and Opportunities

Within the United States solar energy industry, there is a general motto of “set it and forget it” with solar energy. This notion is derived from much of the research and reliability studies around the photovoltaic (PV) panels themselves, not necessarily the PV system as a whole (including the inverter and other components). This implies that maintenance and regular monitoring is not needed. Yet many things can go wrong to cause the actual performance to deviate from the expected performance. If failures and/or unanticipated degradation issues go undetected, they will lead to reduced energy generation (and associated electricity credits) and/or potential loss of component warranty because of manufacturer turnover. Given the size of the problem and gaps with current solutions, the authors propose that PV system owners need an unbiased third-party off-the-shelf system-level predictive maintenance tool to optimize return-on-investment and minimize time to warranty claim in PV installations. This paper reviews the literature highlighting challenges, current approaches, and opportunities for PV predictive maintenance. The paper concludes with a call to action for establishing a collaborative agenda toward prioritizing PV predictive maintenance.

Factors Influencing Technological Capability Building in the Nigerian Solar Energy Industry

Technological capability study has continued to gain ground as recognisable progress is being made in the resource-based view (RBV) theory. As a matter of fact, it has become more relevant in the context of a developing nation, such as Nigeria, as a means to create economic development. Using the Panda and Ramanathan methodology for measuring technological capability (TC) in the electric sector, this paper adopted the indicators from the paper to investigate the effects of factors affecting TC on the Nigerian solar energy firms’ TCs. The results of seemingly unrelated regressions showed that both internal and external factors significantly affect technological capability in the solar energy industry in different directions, but similar directions to organizational capability of the solar energy firms’ in Nigeria.