Data and software company Solargis, working within the solar investments sector, has opened a North American office in the Greater Toronto area, bolstering its regional presence in the Americas as the rapidly expanding solar market seeks to manage its exposure to climate and resource-related risks. The new office will directly service the US and Canada, enabling Solargis to support its local customers effectively while extending the business’ South American footprint – particularly in key markets such as Brazil, Chile and Mexico, where Solargis has longstanding relationships.
Across the Americas, the provider of high-quality solar irradiance data and software has established partnerships throughout the supply chain, from utility-scale and rooftop project investors, developers and asset managers to independent engineers and equipment manufacturers.
Solargis’ expansion in North America comes as the solar market experiences formidable growth, backed by robust political support. This growth is hugely encouraging as the US and Canada target a successful energy transition. However, with increasing scale comes increasing exposure to new risks.
Solargis has pinpointed four significant resource-related challenges in the Americas:
Climate volatility and extreme weather - As shown by the recent record-breaking heatwave and the Texas freeze the Americas are increasingly facing volatile, extreme weather due to climate change, causing considerable uncertainty for solar investors as they look to manage their assets and accurately assess future profitability. To minimise the impact of these events, project owners need reliable long-term forecasting for solar resource and other key meteorological variables.
Untested new technologies - Another key risk to solar sector growth is caused by increased adoption of new technologies such as bifacial solar panels and trackers. Understanding the key data underpinning new innovations is crucial to justify project design decisions and ensure a realistic return on investment.
Grid integration - As the industry scales up, the challenge of integrating ever larger solar projects into the US decentralised grid rises too, threatening grid instability and increasing financial risks to solar asset owners. Solar project owners and operators require highly granular and reliable solar resource and power simulation data to manage the intermittency of the resource and prevent under- or over- production.
Growing investor scrutiny on asset performance - As governments globally scale back financial support for solar, investors have sought to ensure that their assets can continue to operate profitably even as mechanisms such as Investment Tax Credit (ITC) are phased out. They have increasingly placed greater expectations on asset managers to deliver transparency on project performance and demonstrate this with reliable, high-resolution data.
“Across the continent, the market is recognising the increasingly critical need to adopt high-resolution resource data and gain greater certainty on project performance as the risk profile of development and operation evolves” said Giridaran Srinivasan, CEO, Americas. “Solargis is bolstering its presence in the market to help to drive cost of energy down, make solar more resilient and competitive, and ensure a seamless growth trajectory.”
Solargis’ global customer base uses its high-resolution satellite data and software products to prospect for and evaluate new sites, informing the financial projections and due diligence that underpin project development.
During project operations, Solargis data is used to monitor, optimise, and forecast performance based on local weather conditions. This data has been used to support a large share of new and operating solar projects in North America.
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