Lium, an energy market research firm for institutional users, announced the launch of a new data product for tracking utility-scale solar projects called solarSAT.

The Inflation Reduction Act will drastically change the solar energy landscape. Coinciding with this revolutionary government action, Lium’s new intelligence product tracks in real-time the development of every large-scale U.S. solar project through satellite imagery.

In addition to industrywide intelligence, investors and corporate management teams can use this product to drill down on each large-scale solar project in development. Project-specific data includes groundbreaking dates (firstDIRT), panel deliveries, installation, market share, completion progress and other milestones.

“As an alternative to anecdotes, lagging data and guesswork, our data science team developed solarSAT to digest thousands of satellite images on hundreds of project locations,” said Daniel Cruise, partner at Lium Research. “With this product, we are hoping to change the way participants make investment decisions in solar.”

Lium solarSAT data is aggregated into various datasets and monthly summary products. For the first time, investors can access real-time, carpet-level intelligence on solar growth instead of imperfect information.

“Early users of solarSAT are enjoying higher conviction on their market theses, gaining business development advantages, and are surprised less often. They know what’s coming and from who and where before the rest of the market thanks to this product,” said Cruise.

A launch report revealed several key findings:

• firstDIRT much better than feared
  • As part of the solarSAT product, Lium has built specific capabilities to track exactly when each project begins construction or ‘turns dirt’, also called firstDIRT. Based on this data, new activity has been much stronger than generally thought among the industry.
• But panel installations still dragging
  • Tracking actual panel deliveries at the site, Lium satellite data is consistent with anecdotes and panel imports suggesting lower installation activity. Using that data, roughly 30% fewer panels were installed this month vs. a year ago.
• July projects under construction > 19 GW_AC
  • According to solarSAT data, Lium counts 19-20 GW_AC of projects under construction at the end of July, up 25% from a year ago. Of this, 10-GW_AC have yet to receive any panels.

Lium has introduced three solarSAT databases that will be regularly updated for clients going forward:

• solarSAT Summary Data
• solarSAT Status Detail
• firstDIRT Monthly Update

News item from Lium