Utility grid-connected photovoltaic distributed power systems

The utility grid-connected market has been identified as a key market to be developed to accelerate the commercialization of photovoltaics. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) has completed the first three years of a continuing commercialization effort based on the sustained, orderly development of the grid-connected, utility PV market. This program is aimed at developing the experience needed to successfully integrate PV as distributed generation into the utility system and to stimulate the collaborative processes needed to accelerate the cost-reductions necessary for PV to be cost-effective in these applications by about the year 2000. In the first three years, SMUD has installed over 340 residential and commercial buildings, grid-connected, rooftop, PV Pioneer systems totaling over 1.4MW of capacity of five substation sited, grid-support PV systems totaling 860 kW bringing the SMUD distributed PV power system to nearly 5 MW. SMUD also established a partnership with its customers through the PV Pioneer green pricing program to advance PV commercialization and to develop rooftops as PV power plant distributed generation sites.