Driving Down PV Costs by Streamlining Project Data

Oct. 23, 2017 | Contact media relations

For the banks and financial institutions that fund solar power projects, collecting and evaluating each project’s data can present big challenges. Today, analysts at these institutions must sort through reams of data in many different formats. To remove the drudgery and high costs of solar project data management, NREL is working with various stakeholders on the Orange Button initiative. Orange Button is driving the creation and adoption of industry-led, open data standards for seamless data exchange across the solar industry.

NREL is teaming with a range of stakeholders, such as the Smart Electric Power Alliance, SunSpec Alliance, and kWh Analytics on the initiative. For its role, NREL is developing the Solar Data Exchange Platform, a website that hosts a solar data catalog, access to common data standards, a means to combine data, and search functionality. The goal here, according to Kristen Ardani, the NREL program lead for soft cost reduction, is interoperability. “Making data interoperable is very important for reducing soft costs and transaction costs for the industry,” she said.

Learn more about the context and goals of the Orange Button Initiative in a recent blog post by the Smart Electric Power Alliance.