Methodology of Solar Project Managing Through All Stages of Development

Abstract

The unique methodology for managing solar projects through all of their development stages has been created. This paper provides detailed description of the specifics of this methodology and describes its benefits and necessity. The lack of a unified methodology is caused by the fact that there are many service providers, which offer various separate tools and services for solar energy companies. Most of the available separate services and tools focus on supporting a specific stage of solar project development. Overall, the lack of a unified methodology leads to unnecessary resource spending, making the final costs of solar projects higher, and lengthening payback time, thus making solar energy less attractive. Developed methodology is the result of cooperation between solar installers, solar software developers, and researchers. In the process of methodology development, the unique knowledge transfer space was created. This allowed to pinpoint the real needs of a solar energy project development process and discover the solutions to the burning issues. The developed methodology is represented as the service platform PVStream, and its services cover the full scope of the needs of solar energy project development. The tools and services united by the methodology include a lead generation and proposal tool, financial feasibility analysis, energy efficiency analysis, project design and engineering tool, performance modeling and simulation suite, and monitoring and maintenance tool. The usage of such methodology significantly reduces human resources time by automating design, performance modeling, documentation creation, and overall project management. Further development and dissemination of the united solar energy project development methodology will make solar energy more affordable and attractive, by cutting the costs of the project development and cutting overhead costs of solar energy companies.