US Solar Facilities Lost $ 5,720 per megawatt in 2024, with global losses due to equipment errors and extreme weather of $ 10 billion. Raptor Maps says that 193 GW of projects has registered rising current losses, mainly from inverters, strings and combiners, with regional weather risks that vary considerably.
Raptor Maps, an American software, drone and robotics analysis company, said that worldwide losses reached the subcutaneous of solar assets up to $ 10 billion in 2024.
The company said that although the growth of the underperformance year after year delayed, with an increase of 15%, the average solar facility in its database was on average $ 5,720 per megawatt in annualized losses. This has risen from an average of $ 977 per megawatt in 2020.
The company’s report is based on analysis of 193 GW of Nuts scale, commercial and industrial projects, with 67 GW of projects analyzed in 2024. This is a sample of the approximately 2 TW of the global solar capacity that is installed worldwide.
UnderPerformance was attributed to equipment -driven problems, increased risk profiles as a result of extreme weather, continuous work restrictions and political headwinds.
The power losses have increased considerably since 2020, climb from 1.84% to 5.77%, the company explained Annual report. For the context, a site of 100 MW with 5.77% underperformance would see from year two of operations to the dismantling of the internal return project with 249 basic points, according to Raptor Maps.
At equipment level, the largest power losses were attributed to inverters (2.13%), strings (circuit/string problems that are not in the inverter) (1.26%) and combiners (1.04%). Tracker problems and problems at the module level followed as leading contributors to power losses. The most common problem with power loss for modules was disruptions at cell level.
Another problem that was emphasized was the growing gap between solar deployment and operational work. The cumulative solar capacity increased by 182% from 2018 to 2023, but American employment in activities and maintenance increased by 91% at that time, according to data from the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC).
The average power loss varied wide due to regional markets, with the electrical reliability council of Texas (ERCOT) and PJM interconnection areas of more than $ 7,100 per megawatt, as shown below.
About the American inverters were the main cause of current losses (39%), followed by strings (22%) and combiners (19%). In the Ercot and MidContinent Independent System Operator (Miso) markets, more than 50% of the power losses were due to problems with the inverter.
Extreme weather risks varied greatly per region. Raptor Maps said that Ercot assets were 16 times more likely to be damaged by weather conditions than in the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) region. The Texas Ercot region is mainly exposed to threats due to hail damage, and is also vulnerable to hurricanes. Assets in the southeast had weather damage risks of 6.5 times greater than the Nyiso.
“With a global capacity, 2 TW only two years after reaching 1 T, leading players now embrace automation, software -driven diagnostics and robotics to combat operational challenges and to guarantee the long -term competitiveness,” the report said.
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