Bruce Li, Director of Asia Pacific Digital Power Business, Huawei
The Asia Pacific region has become an exciting renewable energy market in recent years. Many countries with a planned capacity exceeding 1GW have emerged in a short period of time from this part of the world, which injected strong momentum to the PV industry. The local governments have started to provide ample support to the renewable energy industry, which leads to vibrant investment activities domestically as well as internationally.
Grid-connectivity and Stability
However, challenges always go hand in hand with opportunities. First, the national power grids in many APAC countries will get weaker when a large number of renewable energy plants are connected to the grid in a short period of time. This raises many concerns about grid stability. Thus it is critical for the power plant equipment to support the characteristics of the power grid.
Recently, at SNEC in Shanghai, Huawei received the industry’s first certificate under the new China national standard (GB/T 37408 Technical Requirements for PV Plant Grid-supporting Inverters). It demonstrated the capabilities of our AI BOOST intelligent grid connection algorithm, which enables solar plants to be more stable even under an extremely weak power grid with SCR=1.5.
Energy Storage Solution
Secondly, the energy storage solution is thought to be playing a pivotal role in the PV industry, and APAC is catching up on this trend to tap onto its abundant solar energy potential. In the past, energy storage has a bad reputation for its fire hazard, low efficiency, and high maintenance cost. Huawei’s unique solution is ready to meet all the challenges that the current market couldn’t completely solve. So, this year we have just launched Huawei energy storage solution for residential markets. The energy storage solution for C&I and utility projects will be launched next year as well.
Based on our module highly stable Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) system, we provide a more efficient and reliable solution. More so, we are no stranger to the energy storage market, where our SmartLi Solution has been in the market since 2011 with more than 1GWh shipments.
Maintain High Quality
Thirdly, we have seen many small scale solar projects are affected by frequent faults, which significantly impact the interests of investors. There are even some cases where the investors had to sustain considerable financial damage. PV is a newly emerged industry in the Asia Pacific. All parties play an essential role in up-keep its safety, reliability, and sustainability.
2020 is indeed an unforgettable year personally and professionally. During the past few months, due to COVID-19, with our local team in more than 20 countries in APAC, we could continue to support our clients and provide essential services fully respecting the local social-distancing measures, despite an abrupt halt of international air travel. However, the pandemic has also highlighted the critical importance of smart grids to promote the reliability and stability of electricity supply, enable smoother remote operations, and better digital experiences. Post-pandemic, we believe it is more important than ever to resort to digital and smart solutions to help the industry recover and create an even brighter future.
2020 Huawei Smart PV for Future Virtual Summit was recently organised with solar industry experts gathered to discuss future trends in the PV market, and exchange valuable insights and experiences in the Asia Pacific region. Find out more, please visit https://solar.huawei.com/apac/APAC_Virtual_Summit2020.
