sunpower's growth strategy: developing software to manage solar and storage - home energy storage

A year later, SunPower's CEO, Tom Werner, described energy storage as part of a "fundamental change in the way solar companies compete", said Tuesday, the company is now conducting a technical test of a pilot project with homebuilder KB Home.
SunPower will provide about a dozen lithium-
Werner told me that in three communities in California, buyers of KB's homes can use the ion battery system for free and install it before the end of the year.
The goal is to understand how these battery systems work with SunPower's solar panels, and since the two companies started working together four years ago, SunPower has sold nearly 3,000 sets of solar systems to KB's customers
"The combination of solar, battery and energy management will give consumers full control over their energy bills," said Werner . ".
"We think this is the beginning of the journey.
"This project is worth a look for a few reasons.
Energy storage is new and is expected to be profitable.
This makes it possible to use solar power not only during the day, but when solar panels are able to catch the sun.
For businesses, they can use stored energy at higher power costs in the day.
Of course, with energy reserves, power outages are more tolerable, especially long outages caused by major storms or other natural disasters.
However, energy storage technology is still expensive and banks interested in financing facilities want to see solid on-site performance data in the first place.
Public incentives will be a major driver of market growth.
California is a huge market because of its three investors.
State-owned utilities are authorized to purchase 1,325 MW of energy storage services by 2020.
SunPower has moved from a solar panel manufacturer to an energy service provider.
It sells solar panels and other equipment to installers and develops solar projects for commercial and utility customers.
SunPower and KB plan to promote energy storage as a way for homeowners to use solar energy as a backup power.
Collecting performance data will help SunPower find the best way to manage solar production and storage of electricity.
SunPower is developing its own software to manage the battery system, Werner said.
He added that the plan will combine it with software that manages solar production and another software that manages the overall energy use of the home.
This will enable SunPower to make money by selling equipment and software to developers and developing its own projects.
For the pilot project, the company is testing lithium
Ion batteries from different suppliers.
One of them is a supplier of battery systems from Sunverge Energy, California, said Werner.
By the way, Sunverge recently raised $15 million from investors such as Total Energy Ventures International.
Total energy is part of the French oil and gas giant Total, which is SunPower's main shareholder.
The pilot project will take place in the community of KB in Irwin, El Dorado and San Diego.
SunPower and KB are looking to sell energy storage products to home buyers starting in 2015.
Some of SunPower's competitors are bullish on the energy storage market.
SolarCity has been promoting its lithium.
Ion battery system for Tesla cars.
SunEdison has been testing different techniques.
Sun said that SunPower has also been running a pilot project in Australia and plans to launch a pilot project in Germany in several quarters.
Not only has the company been testing lithiumion batteries.
It is also working on mobile batteries, lead-acid batteries and Ice Energy.
SunPower is still interested in using different battery technologies in the three segments of residential, commercial and public utilities, Werner said.