Asset view
The Asset view provides comprehensive access to key information associated with an individual asset. It prominently displays the outcomes of the most recent simulation run alongside essential asset properties. Any modifications made to the asset's foundational data and subsequent simulation runs are promptly reflected, ensuring near real-time updates.
During the simulation process, a visual indicator in the upper right corner of the screen informs users of its ongoing status. Once the simulation concludes, the page undergoes an automatic refresh, presenting users with the most up-to-date results.
Tensor Cloud automatically identifies changes in Assets, Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), and Scenarios, triggering simulations without manual intervention. If you encounter unexpected results or have any issues, we recommend reaching out to Tensor support for assistance.
Project
The Asset Project page comprises three collapsible sections: Overview, Technical Specifications, and CAPEX, each containing key information presented in cards. This data is static and unaffected by simulation results, offering a consistent reference point.
Overview
Location Card
This data is crucial for understanding your asset's physical location and its connection to the grid area. On the left side, you can access the Location Name, along with the latitude and longitude of your asset. Clicking on these will open the asset location on Google Maps in a new browser tab.
Beneath the location details, the grid operator's name and utility ID are conveniently presented for quick access.
Additionally, a link to the hazard map provided by Disaportal is available, offering a tool for assessing disaster risks around your asset.
On the right side of the Location Card, an interactive map window displays a marker at the asset's position. The top-left button allows you to toggle between satellite and regular map views, while the top-right button maximizes the map for enhanced visibility.
Connections Card
This card encompasses all the links between your asset and other entities on the Tensor Cloud, specifically Balancing groups, Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), and Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs).
PPA Card
For assets operating under a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), this card displays vital contract terms, including the contract duration and pricing scheme.
Subsidy Card
If your asset operates under a Feed-In Tariff (FIT) or Feed-In Premium (FIP), you can find information about the subsidy scheme and rate on this card.
Timeline Card
This card displays significant lifetime events from Commercial Operation Date (COD) to decommissioning. It provides a clear overview of the relationship and overlap between asset lifetime, Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) term length, and subsidy start/end dates. Tensor Cloud acknowledges the METI-prescribed 3-year grace period between the subsidy start date and COD. Therefore, any COD exceeding 3 calendar years after the subsidy start date may shorten the overall subsidy period, potentially impacting the Internal Rate of Return (IRR). Additionally, if the asset includes a battery, the card presents details such as battery COD and end of warranty alongside other relevant information.
Technical Specifications
Solar Capacity Card
This card displays the AC and DC capacity of your solar PV array.
Solar Components Card
This card provides information on the type of PV panels and inverter utilized in your asset, along with the system's lifetime. Additionally, it displays the inverter lifetime as specified in the Asset Settings.
Currently, Tensor Cloud only supports generic PV modules and inverters. Adding custom panels and inverters is on our product roadmap.
Solar Topology Card
While we will eventually support advanced system topologies consisting of modules, strings, and arrays, Tensor Cloud is currently limited to Tilt and Azimuth as the main topology features, both of which are displayed on this card.
Battery specifications Card
If your asset includes a battery, this card presents comprehensive technical specifications, including energy and power capacity, total number of life cycles, and warranty duration in years.
CAPEX
Analyzing investment and operational costs of a renewable energy asset is a crucial task during asset planning, due diligence, and operational asset management. Tensor Cloud provides industry-leading cost analysis right at your fingertips. The CAPEX section consists of three elements: Payment Schedule, Cumulative CAPEX Timeline, and CAPEX Breakdown.
CAPEX Payments Card
The Payment Card shows you an itemized list of all CAPEX payments registered in the Asset Settings and is scrollable in case an asset has many CAPEX payments.
Cumulative CAPEX Chart
This chart shows you the cumulative amount of CAPEX at each payment date so you can better understand total CAPEX payments at each stage of the asset development lifecycle. If today's date lies within the range of CAPEX payments, you will see an indicator in the Cumulative CAPEX chart showing you cumulative payments until today.
CAPEX Breakdown Chart
When registering CAPEX payments, they can be sorted into categories. The CAPEX Breakdown chart uses this data together with the payment amounts and visualizes how CAPEX breaks down across individual items and payment categories. It can be configured in the Data Settings to show either all CAPEX items by size, or group payments by category.
Simulation
The Simulation page displays the results of simulations, and the information becomes available only after the simulation has completed. It is organized into four collapsible sections.
Tensor Cloud does not aim to compete with engineering-focused solar PV simulation and modeling software packages such as SolarGIS or PVSyst. Instead we see these tools as complementary to the functionality offered by Tensor Cloud, which is focused on financial outcomes and operational asset management.
That being said, we consider Tensor Cloud highly competitive when it comes to modeling large portfolios of small distributed assets where individualized engineering assessments and detailed modeling for each system would be cost prohibitive.
Solar Generation
Electricity Generation
The Electricity generation and curtailment chart shows you the electricity generated by the asset as well as the amount of electricity curtailed. Data is summarized from the original 30-minute granularity into yearly and monthly resolutions over the system lifetime.
The blue series labeled Generation represents the amount of electricity that is generated by the system and fed back into the grid. The red series labeled Curtailment shows the amount of electricity that could have been generated but was not due to curtailment orders from the grid operator.
Curtailment
Tensor Cloud applies curtailment based on two factors: curtailment assumptions about the future, and historical curtailment data.
First, you can control the total amount of curtailment in each grid zone by changing the curtailment assumption in the scenario settings the asset is connected to.
Tensor Cloud also factors in historical curtailment data. We automatically and continuously analyze typical curtailment patterns (dates, times, and amount of curtailed generation). For this, we first find a periodic function that describes the probability of curtailment events for each grid zone with a finite Fourier series fitted on the historical curtailment events. We also calculate the probability of each hour of the day being a start time or an end time for a curtailment event in each month and in grid each zone.
For each zone and each year, we then proceed as follows:
- sample a day in which a curtailment event happens in the zone among available days according to the probability distribution found;
- remove this day from the available days this year;
- decide whether the asset is curtailed in this day by sampling from a gamma distribution representing the distribution of curtailment amounts (from 0% to 100%) for the month for this area. If the asset is affected by the event, continue to 3, otherwise start again from 1;
- sample the start and end hour given the month and zone;
- calculate the total curtailed generation for this plant and add it to the summed curtailed generation so far;
- if the total curtailed generation so far exceeds the proportion of curtailment assumed for this year, stop, otherwise start again from step 1.
This simple probabilistic model is necessary due to the limited availability of historical curtailment data at present. The actual amount of electricity curtailed strongly depends on local grid conditions and future investments into grid infrastructure by the grid operator. As more curtailment data becomes available, we expect to eventually switch over to a more accurate model of daily curtailment based on electricity prices and other external factors.
If your asset is operational and connected to Tensor Cloud for real-time access to generation data, expect curtailment accuracy to improve over time as our machine learning models build an understanding of the curtailment patterns of each asset.
Solar Yield Card
This card shows you first year solar yield and how that yield value breaks down over each month as an easy shorthand for estimating system performance. Annual degradation after year 1 is currently fixed at 0.5% with the first year fixed at 2.5%. We aim to provide options for changing this in the future.
Losses Breakdown Chart
To visually understand how the Loss Settings influence system performance, this chart shows you a waterfall breakdown of each loss factor's contribution.
There is a non-linear relationship between individual loss assumptions. For example, shading losses of 3% and cable losses of 4% do not necessarily result in 7% overall losses. Make sure to consult with a member of your engineering team or transfer these values from a solar PV engineering software such as PVSyst or SolarGIS.
OPEX
OPEX Lifetime Chart
This chart and spreadsheet show you all OPEX line items over the lifetime of the asset. The chart data is derived from a simulation at 30-minute resolution but displayed in monthly and yearly sums. In the chart options at the top right, you can switch chart and spreadsheet resolution, and exclude specific OPEX items from being shown.
Excluding cost items from being displayed in the chart is purely visual and will not exclude these items from the underlying financial model. IRR and other higher-level outcomes are not affected. To actually change the OPEX, edit the OPEX assumptions in the asset settings.
OPEX Breakdown Chart
For analysis and benchmarking purposes, the OPEX Breakdown Chart can be used to quickly gauge the balance of OPEX cost items over the whole system lifetime. Just like in the OPEX Lifetime Chart, the order of cost items is fixed, allowing for easy visual comparison between assets.
If costs for an item are particularly small, or if you have a limited horizontal screen size, you might have to hover your mouse over the item to see the percentage or amount.
Revenues
Key Indicators Card
This card presents the key performance indicators (KPIs) that are essential for evaluating the financial performance of the asset.
IRR is central to all investment decision-making and is derived from the lifetime cash flows of the asset. Entering CAPEX payments is required for the IRR calculation to properly function. This card displays a warning in case no CAPEX payments have been entered.
Average revenues per kWh are calculated by dividing lifetime subsidy payments (either FIT or FIP in JPY) by the lifetime electricity generation (kWh). As asset lifetime is often substantially longer than the 20 years of subsidy, any kWh generated after running out of subsidy will dilute this value.
Lifetime revenues consist of the combined market revenues, PPA cash flow, and subsidy income.
Market Revenues which are electricity sales on the day-ahead, intraday or ancillary markets.
Subsidy Revenues which are payments received for assets operating under FIP or FIT schemes.
PPA Cash Flows which are cash in or cash out events generated by selling the asset's environmental value or electricity production through a PPA.
Depending on your asset and PPA settings, not necessarily all three revenue sources apply to each asset. For example, assets without PPAs won't create PPA cash flows, assets without subsidy won't generate subsidy income and non-VPPA assets won't generate market revenues in every case.
Make sure to confirm the asset's revenue composition on the Revenues section or Cash Flows section when comparing and evaluating IRR.
The Revenue section allows you to explore the asset's projected revenues based on the Tensor Cloud simulation model in chart and spreadsheet format. In the chart options you can switch between breaking down the data into line items, or just showing the totals. Minimum resolution for the data is monthly.
Market Revenues
Currently, Tensor Cloud only considers day-ahead and intraday sales as sources of market revenues. Going forward, with the introduction of our battery storage module, you will be able to accurately model ancillary market revenues as well.
Although sales on the intraday market can generate revenues, without battery storage to shift electricity to high-priced time slots, we expect intraday trades to behave more like a cost item that is incurred to reduce imbalance rather than a source of additional revenue.
Subsidy Revenues
This includes FIP or FIT payments, depending on which Subsidy Scheme the asset is operating under.
While FIT payments are easy to calculate, FIP payouts come with a larger degree of uncertainty. They do not only depend on JEPX market prices, but also on future volume of renewable energy production in each of Japan's grid areas. In addition, there is a 1-year lag between JEPX prices and their effect on FIP payouts.
For example, 2022 has seen unprecedentedly high prices on both day-ahead and intraday markets due to a multitude of energy-economic and geopolitical factors. As a result, we expect there to be virtually no FIP payments in 2023, massively affecting those assets larger than 50 kW that rely on FIP as a value driver.
Tensor Cloud uses the official METI methodology for calculating FIP payouts. We are consistently updating the methodology in line with regulatory changes.
Your assumptions on future average system price and price mean average deviation are the main drivers of FIP revenues in the Tensor Cloud simulation model. We recommend creating multiple scenarios with different price and volatility assumptions to experiment with the effect of market prices on the FIP revenues of asset portfolio.
Cashflow
This section brings together all three Revenue components and the asset's OPEX and CAPEX into operating and both yearly and cumulative net cash flows.
Net Cash Flow Chart
This chart should be familiar to anyone working in renewable asset financing and is often the key when evaluating asset profitability in more detail. In the chart itself, only net cash flow or cumulative net cash flow are shown, depending on whether you selected Yearly or Cumulative in the chart data options.
The spreadsheet also contains other data series such as net electricity generation, all three revenues sources, OPEX, and CAPEX.
Lifetime Cash Flow Breakdown
To better understand the relationship between revenue and cost components, this waterfall chart builds up market revenues, FIP revenues and PPA cash flow into total revenues, then subtracts OPEX and CAPEX to yield the lifetime net cash flow as one aggregate number.
The chart data options allow you to switch between absolute JPY values, percentage of total revenues, or JPY per kWh of generated lifetime electricity.
PPA Cash Flows
These can be either positive or negative, depending on the PPA contract terms and market conditions over the lifetime of the asset. PPA cash flow is always shown from the perspective of the asset owner. PPA offtaker cash flows are the inverse of the PPA cash flow.
Visually understanding totals when the PPA cash flow is negative can be challenging. If revenue composition is irrelevant to you, turn on the option to display totals in the chart data options instead.