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Learning reliability lessons from PV leasing
Author(s) -
Rogers John H.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
progress in photovoltaics: research and applications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.286
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1099-159X
pISSN - 1062-7995
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1099-159x(199905/06)7:3<235::aid-pip265>3.0.co;2-e
Subject(s) - reliability (semiconductor) , photovoltaic system , business , component (thermodynamics) , market penetration , service (business) , environmental economics , scale (ratio) , computer science , industrial organization , marketing , economics , engineering , electrical engineering , power (physics) , physics , quantum mechanics , thermodynamics
PV leasing—whereby an energy service company owns and maintains photovoltaic systems installed at the site of the client—helps customers overcome high initial costs and after‐sales issues. This business structure also offers the industry significant opportunities for accumulating and analyzing data on PV component and system reliability. Companies seeking to serve the huge developing country market for small, stand‐alone PV systems can take advantage of the increased market penetration of the leasing, or fee‐for‐service, offering and the access to reliability data inherent in such an operation for design optimization during scale‐ups. SOLUZ, Inc. has offered fee‐for‐service to rural customers since 1994 and by late 1998 was serving 2000 customers in target areas within two developing country markets. Its experiences offer insight into the reliability data collection and analysis potential through fee‐for‐service and the importance of the data for improving PV system performance and component longevity. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.