Now that the dust has settled from last week’s Solar Power Africa 2023 conference in Cape Town, Huawei is taking some time away from showcasing its new lineup of residential smart PV (photovoltaic) solar solutions to unpack some of the key trends it has identified for smart PV based on other regions it operates in.

For those attending last week’s conference this took the form of a booklet (seen above) that was made available to all, but for those not at the event, Huawei has chosen to highlight 10 trends it has uncovered.

Here, upgraded security, improved grid integration, the increasing use of AI, and more has been identified by David Minnis, Huawei Senior Solution director of Energy Storage Systems (ESS). 

Speaking at Solar Power Africa, Minnis also highlighted that while increased demand for renewable energy sources has resulted in booming growth for the global solar PV industry, Africa still faces several challenges when it comes to meeting its immense potential. 

Throughout the event, the statistic that Africa has 60 percent of the world’s best solar resources, but only one percent of solar generation capacity, was hammered home for attendees.

If that figure is to change, Minnis is of the opinion that the following 10 trends need to be actively leveraged by the current solar players on the continent:

The rapidly evolving landscape

The first trend is a new type of generator; embedded PV and ESS.

According to Minnis, as more renewable energy is fed into power grids, a number of technical problems arise in terms of system stability, power balance, and power quality. With the integration of PV and ESS, as well as grid forming technology, smart PV and ESS generators that use voltage source control, instead of current source control, can be built.

Next is the evolution of PV plants and generators, along with ESS solutions, which are only set to become denser and more reliable moving forward.

“With the application of new materials such as silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN), as well as the full integration of digital, power electronics, and thermal management technologies, it is estimated that the power density of inverters will increase by about 50% in the next five years while maintaining a high degree of reliability,” explains Huawei.

Third is a trend that will be of interest to homeowners, as module-level power electronics (MLPE) come to the fore. MLPE refers to power-related electronic equipment that can perform refined control on one or more PV modules, including micro-inverters, power optimisers, and disconnectors.

“MLPE brings unique values such as module-level power generation, monitoring, and safe shutdown. As PV systems become safer and more intelligent, the penetration rate of MLPE in the distributed PV market is expected to reach 20% to 30% by 2027,” the company has predicted.

The fourth trend pertains to ESS and has been identified as string energy storage.

“It uses innovative technologies and digital intelligent management to optimise energy at the battery pack level and control energy at the rack level,” Huawei notes.

Up next is cell-level refined management. Here Huawei says the shift to MLPE will require deeper and more accurate analysis than what current battery management systems can deliver. As such, the application of AI has a role to play on this front.

The sixth trend looks at how PV, ESS, and the grid integrate.

“On the power generation side, it’s becoming increasingly common to build clean energy bases of PV+ESS that supply electricity to load centres through UHV power transmission lines. On the power consumption side, virtual power plants (VPPs) are becoming increasingly popular in many countries,” says Huawei.

“As such, building a stable energy system that integrates the PV + ESS + Grid to support PV power supply and feed-in to grid will become a key measure to ensure energy security. We can integrate digital, power electronics, and energy storage technologies to achieve multi-energy complementation,” it continues.

For the seventh trend, Minnis points to a key aspect in the South African context – upgraded safety.

“Safety is the cornerstone of the PV and ESS industry’s development. This requires us to systematically consider all scenarios and links and fully integrate power electronics, electrochemical, thermal management, and digital technologies to upgrade systems safety,” Minnis says.

The next trend is an extension of the previous one, as Huawei stresses the role of security and trustworthiness. This applies both the physical integrity of these solutions, as well as their cyber safeguarding.

“Equipment safety risks mainly refer to shutdowns caused by faults. Information security risks refer to external network attacks. To cope with these challenges and threats, enterprises and organisations need to establish a complete set of ‘security and trustworthiness’ management mechanisms, including the reliability, availability, security, and resilience of systems and devices,” the company points out.

Ninth, Huawei has found, is digitalisation, particularly as it is seen to help drive productivity and economic development. This is as a shift to renewable and clean energy will necessitate the increased adoption of digital solutions.

“Only by visualising, managing, and controlling the full process of energy generation, transmission, storage, distribution, and consumption, can we promote the rapid development of a green, sustainable, and mutually beneficial energy system and eventually realise autonomous driving of the entire power system,” it adds.

The final trend is particularly topical at the moment – AI application.

“With the deepening of digitalisation of power plants, the amount of data generated by equipment increases explosively, which provides a good foundation for the wide application of AI. AI is rapidly becoming the cornerstone of innovation,” according to Huawei.

As the above shows, there are myriad elements to consider if the African continent and its energy stakeholders are going to make the most of smart PV solar, especially as energy crises in countries like South Africa show no signs of abating.

To view, download (PDF), and read the trends report in full yourself, use this link.