10 Tech Trends Driving Solar, Storage Development

Ten major technological trends in the solar and energy storage industry will drive the energy transition and ensure sustainable economic development, according to Dr. David Zhao, Senior Vice President, Sungrow Power Supply.

In a recent speech, Dr. Zhao noted that despite the rapid expansion of PV installations worldwide, the evolving power infrastructure faces five challenges: supply chain security, clean energy consumption, power system stability, resilience to load variability, and cost management. As a vital part of power decarbonization, the energy storage sector is going through a period of intense accelerated growth.

Based on his understanding of the industry, Dr. Zhao identified 10 technological trends that are essential for advancing solar and storage development.

1. High Density and High Efficiency: With the declining costs and increased localization of third-generation wide-bandgap semiconductors, inverters are progressively incorporating Silicon Carbide (SiC) and Gallium Nitride (GaN) devices. Enhanced by advanced control algorithms, increased computing power, and novel thermal packaging technologies, these changes will significantly boost the power density and efficiency of equipment.
2. Development of High-Voltage and High-Power Systems: Over the past decade, inverter single-unit power has undergone a major improvement cycle every 2-3 years, with DC voltage moving toward 2000V.
3. Grid Forming: As renewable energy penetration increases, grid-forming technologies are becoming essential to ensure a flexible, reliable, and resilient power system.
4. Digitalization and AI Empowerment: Digitalization and AI are revolutionizing the entire lifecycle of PV plants, boosting both reliability and operational efficiency.
5. Secure and Reliable Systems: Dr. Zhao noted that a 30-year system design lifespan is set to become a new trend and standard for future inverters. He outlined more than a dozen advanced designs and technologies integral to system security and reliability, including modular design, multi-tier active fault alarms, arc detection, and shutdown mechanisms.
6. Topology Innovation: Topology innovation plays a crucial role in enhancing power conversion efficiency. In 2018, Sungrow developed the world’s first 6MW 35kV Solid State Transformer-based (SST-based) PV inverter. This inverter replaced traditional low-frequency transformer with a high-frequency one, achieving an overall maximum efficiency of 98.5%.
7. High-Precision Simulation: For different global scenarios and grid conditions, system-level modeling and simulation capabilities are needed to mimic the performance of solar, wind, and storage systems in on-grid/off-grid and steady-state/transient processes. As simulation systems evolve, they will increasingly approximate real-world conditions, significantly shortening inverter and power system development cycles while reducing costs.
8. Virtual Power Plants: Virtual power plants (VPPs) leverage internet technologies to aggregate distributed PV, energy storage, and loads into a unified entity for grid dispatch. VPPs optimize energy utilization, promote clean energy consumption, reduce grid congestion and negative pricing, and enable control in patches for grid ancillary services, ensuring rapid response and grid stability. This significantly reduces grid construction and operational costs. By leveraging real-time monitoring and demand forecasting, VPPs can guide users to optimize their electricity consumption, and, by doing so, enhance supply reliability.
9. Source-Grid-Load-Storage-Carbon Integration: Dr. Zhao proposed that integrated management of source-grid-load-storage-carbon systems can promote large-scale clean energy integration, reduce curtailment, and achieve clear carbon reduction goals.
10. Green Hydrogen, Ammonia, and Methanol: The global demand for green hydrogen is soaring, and renewable energy-based electrolysis represents a critical future pathway. Moreover, ammonia and methanol are becoming increasingly popular due to their ease of storage and transport. Decoupling power generation from hydrogen production systems allows for the remote production of hydrogen through power transmission.

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