Description
Berkeley Labs "Utility-Scale Solar", 2023 Edition presents analysis of empirical plant-level data from the U.S. fleet of ground-mounted photovoltaic (PV), PV+battery, and concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) plants with capacities exceeding 5 MWAC. While focused on key developments in 2022, this report explores trends in deployment, technology, capital and operating costs, capacity factors, the levelized cost of solar energy (LCOE), power purchase agreement (PPA) prices, wholesale market value, and interconnection queue data.
Resources
| Name | Format | Description | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 Utility-Scale Solar Data Update.xlsm | XLS | Workbook that summarizes the main findings of the project publication. | Open resource |
| Plant-level Hourly Generation estimates.zip | ZIP | Hourly plant-level generation estimates (2012-2022) based on plant-specific technical parameters and historical irradiance records from the National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB), (2012-2020) and The High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR), (2021-2022). The numbers in the file names represent EIA plant IDs. gen_SAM represents the simple output of NREL's Solar Advisory Model, gen_debias_output incorporates official plant-level monthly or annual generation records (EIA 928) and ISO solar profiles. gen_clean is our best post-curtailment generation estimate, gen_curtailed represents hourly curtailments for plants in CAISO and ERCOT. | Open resource |
| Plant-level Annual UPV Energy and Capacity Wholesale Market Value.xlsx | XLS | Annual (2012-2022) energy and capacity value (both expressed in $2022/MWh) by EIA plant ID for the seven organized markets and eighteen additional balancing areas (NEVP, LDWP, AZPS, PACE, PNM, PSCO, IPCO, PACW, WACM, BPAT, TEC, SCEG, CPLE, FPL, FPC, DUK, SOCO, TVA) | Open resource |
| User guide for Utility-Scale Solar Generation and Market Value Data File 2023.pdf | A user guide to the Plant-level Hourly Generation Estimates | Open resource | |
| Project Page with More Information | HTML | The project page includes a technical brief, a power point presentation, webinar recordings and interactive data visualizations. | Open resource |
Tags
- analysis
- battery
- berkeley-lab
- capacity
- capacity-factor
- capacity-factors
- capital-costs
- costs
- csp
- data
- deployment
- energy
- energy-analysis
- generation
- ground-mounted
- hourly
- hourly-generation
- interconnection-queue
- lcoe
- market
- market-analysis
- market-value
- operating-cost
- operating-costs
- photovoltaic
- plant-level
- power
- power-purchase-agreement
- power-purchase-agreements
- ppa
- pv
- pv-battery
- solar
- solar-power
- utility-scale-solar
- wholesale-market-value