SBIR-STTR Award

Leaptran proposes to develop an innovative solar forecasting software solution to aggregate multiple solar sites located in rural areas. The software solution will:"¢ forecast individual solar energy generation (i.e. intra-hour intra-day and day-ahead) accurately and reliably"¢ aggregate solar forecasting among rural small and scattered solar sites which cannot be accomplished cost effectively nowadays and"¢ offer electric co-ops and solar owners the flexibility to make business decisions in fulfilling its contracts during extreme weather. Leaptran plans to achieve goal in Phase I by aggregating at least 3 solar sites located in rural areas to prove the concept. The objective is to design a robust software tool that helps electric co-ops capitalize on electricity market opportunities by keeping as a low-cost electricity provider for its community members and promoting solar development. If provided with the opportunity to extend this project into Phase II after the proof of concept Leaptran would focus on harnessing aggregating integrating computing and visualizing big data from multiple solar sites to offer solar forecasting asset monitoring weather forecasting for various stakeholders (e.g. co-ops and solar owners/developers). We can commercialize this software tool in a traditional licensing deal and/or software as a service (SaaS). Ultimately we envision the software will offer the ability for a better communication among stakeholders for energy conservation and other utility services or contracts. The technology will facilitate transparency among utility grid operator’s generation transmission and distribution to view the results from a single point to gain a great economic benefit for rural community.

Distributed solar generation (DSG) systems include residential rooftop, commercial & industrial (C&I), and community solar installations. The installation of large amounts of distributed solar systems have injected additional uncertainty into power system operations and planning for all utilities, including rural-based electric co-ops. Leaptrans Phase II overall technical objective is to demonstrate a robust, reliable, and scalable software solution package to provide aggregated solar forecasting (ASF) and net load forecasting (NLF) for thousands of rural community solar sites' PV production, thus enhancing the ability of solar energy systems to contribute to rural area grid reliability and resiliency. Leaptran's proposed Phase II project will continue leveraging its successful proposed objectives from Phase I. The proposed Phase II project is also well aligned with the strategic goals laid out in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Strategic Plan Fiscal Years 2022-2026, such as developing low-carbon energy solutions by investing renewable electricity generation (Objective 1.4) and expanding opportunities for economic development and improving quality of life in rural and tribal communities (Strategic Goal 5). Leaptran's Phase II efforts will further existing and future investments in sustainable, reliable, and resilient power generation, transmission, and distribution systems in American rural communities through advanced data analytic-based decision-making and an aggregated solar forecasting (ASF) solution. Leaptran plans to market its solution mainly to rural-based electric co-ops and publicly owned utilities (POUs). Success for this technology includes having multiple utilities use the product and demonstrating a reliable solution to provide accurate ASF solutions by the end of SBIR Phase II.