Solar asset settings
This is a comprehensive overview of all available solar PV asset settings on Tensor Cloud.
Asset Name
You can choose an arbitrary asset name to make it easy to find your asset or group it with other assets. We recommend including a number in your asset name, so you can easily identify it later. It is helpful to align with your team on a fixed naming convention for your assets in the early stages of creating your portfolio on Tensor Cloud.
You can rename assets quickly from the asset list view by clicking the three-dot icon on the right side of the list and select "Rename" option.
Project
The Project tab summarizes the fundamental project-management aspects of your asset. Many settings and fields are required to properly simulate your asset performance.
Project Information
The project information section contains the most basic settings for you asset. Many of the settings are required for the asset simulation to produce meaningful results.
Asset Status
The asset status should reflect the current development phase or technical status of your asset. Although there are many more stages that solar PV assets go through before COD, including construction, we included only the essentials needed to properly manage your asset on Tensor Cloud.
Location
Specify your asset location by entering the longitude and latitude of your solar installation. Use Google Maps or other mapping solutions to find the approximate center of the land plot your asset is located on.
If you do not know the exact location of your asset yet, try to identify a representative location in roughly the same geographical area instead, and update the asset location as you get more clarify.
Although we automatically validate that your location is within Japan, Tensor Cloud does not match the values you entered with the grid zone of your asset. Please make sure to double-check your latitude and longitude values to ensure reliable simulation results.
Location Name
For rural locations, the exact address of a land plot can often not be clearly determined. This is why we allow you to manually enter a name for the location of your asset, so you can more easily identify it later.
While this field is not required and has no impact on simulation results, we strongly encourage you to provide at least the prefecture and municipality names to help you better understand your portfolio in the asset list view.
Grid Zone
Choose one of the 10 electric utility grid zones that you expect your asset to be connected to. As things like renewable penetration rates, pricing, curtailment, and energy mix all differ across grid zones, you are required to specify a grid zone, so our simulation engine can work properly.
In our experience, choosing a grid zone is one of the most important drivers of asset performance due to large differences in renewable curtailment rates.
COD
This is the expected date of grid interconnection. Updating the date will recalculate the simulation results for this asset.
Currently, dates from January 1, 2022 to January 1, 2050 are supported. Note, however, that the COD plus asset lifetime cannot result in a date later than December 31, 2052.
We plan to add support for legacy feed-in-tariff assets with a COD before 2022 going forward. Please refer to the Tensor Cloud changelog to better understand new features.
Site AC capacity
This is the total nameplate capacity of your system inverters. The value cannot be larger than the DC capacity and cannot be negative.
Scenario
Choose the Scenario your asset will operate under. For any newly created asset, this will default to the Default Scenario as defined in the Scenario section of Tensor Cloud.
Assets under different scenarios will 'live' in 'different universes' as to speak. Their results will not be comparable and we discourage including them in the same analysis as they might warp the overall view of your portfolio.
We strongly recommend to change the asset scenario only to analyze how an asset would behave under different macro assumptions or if asset investors explicitly ask for different assumptions from the rest of your portfolio.
Operational Information
Location ID
Enter the asset ID issued by the transmission and distribution utility of the Grid Zone your asset is connected to.
Although we strongly believe that having all asset-related information in one place will make your day-to-day easier, this field is not required and does not impact the simulation results.
METI ID
Enter the asset ID issued by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry upon asset registration.
Although we strongly believe that having all asset-related information in one place will make your day-to-day easier, this field is not required and does not impact the simulation results.
METI Registration ID
Enter the asset registration ID issued by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry upon asset registration. This number is needed to change legal ownership of the asset.
Although we strongly believe that having all asset-related information in one place will make your day-to-day easier, this field is not required and does not impact the simulation results.
Grid Code
This is code that was assigned at the time of registering your power plant with OCCTO.
Contract classification number 2
This number is assigned by the Transmission System Operator. In some cases it is specific to each asset, in other cases it might be a fixed value.
Metering Day
Enter the day of the calendar month that the asset meters will be read by the electric utility.
Although we strongly believe that having all asset-related information in one place will make your day-to-day easier, this field is not required and does not impact the simulation results.
Stakeholders
Developer
Enter the name of the main asset developer in this optional field to better sort and filter assets in the asset list view, or when analyzing simulation results.
You can manage your list of Developers from the custom data tab in the Tensor Cloud settings.
Entering a developer name will not give this developer access to any information in your account, nor will it inform the developer that you have associated them with an asset. This field exists purely to help you better organize your asset portfolio.
EPC Company
Enter the name of your main EPC Company in this optional field to better sort and filter assets in the asset list view, or when analyzing simulation results.
You can manage your list of EPC Companies from the custom data tab in the Tensor Cloud settings.
Entering an EPC Company name will not give this EPC Company access to any information in your account, nor will it inform the EPC Company that you have associated them with an asset. This field exists purely to help you better organize your asset portfolio.
O&M Provider
Enter the name of your main O&M Provider in this optional field to better sort and filter assets in the asset list view, or when analyzing simulation results.
You can manage your list of O&M Providers from the custom data tab in the Tensor Cloud settings.
Entering an O&M Provider name will not give this O&M Provider access to any information in your account, nor will it inform the O&M Provider that you have associated them with an asset. This field exists purely to help you better organize your asset portfolio.
Danger Zone
Settings and actions in this section might have far-reaching or unintended consequences. Exercise caution when using them.
Delete Asset
This will permanently delete your asset and make it inaccessible for you and others in your workspace. It will also disassociate the deleted asset from any PPAs, and invalidate all simulation results associated with it.
Solar
The Solar tab summarizes the technical aspects of your solar asset. Settings in this section affect the amount of electricity your asset will generate in the Tensor Cloud simulation. The more more details you can provide, the more accurate the simulation results will be.
Lifecycle
System lifetime
Specify the number of calendar years your asset will remain operational after the COD. Your asset will stop generating cash flows at the end of its lifetime.
Specifications
DC Capacity
This is the total nameplate capacity of all solar PV panels of your solar installation. The value cannot be smaller than the AC capacity and cannot be negative.
Although there is no lower or upper limit to the DC capacity, simulation accuracy for systems smaller than 5 kWp is limited.
Tilt
This is the angle of horizontal tilt of the PV panels in degrees. The value must be between 0 and 90.
Azimuth
This is the rotation angle of your asset against north in degrees. The value must be between 0 and 360. 0 corresponds to north, 90 to east, 180 to south, and 270 to west.
Altitude
Setting this to reflect the actual altitude of your asset location will slightly improve simulation accuracy. Defaults to 0 meters above sea level.
Module degradation
Specify at which rate the output of your PV panels decreases annually.
PV cell temperature coefficient
Specify how efficient your PV panels are at higher temperatures by changing this value. Defaults to -0.4 percent.
The PV cell temperature coefficient is the parameter needed to calculate losses due to heat above or below 25 degrees celsius, and it usually ranges between -0.29 and -0.5 %/°C. This means that every 10 °C in excess results in a decrease in power of the module by 2,9% to 5%.
Losses
You can make detailed system losses assumptions in this section.
Inverter Losses
Specify the amount of electricity lost when passing through the inverters. This value defaults to 4 percent, which equals an inverter efficiency of 96%.
Shading Losses
Specify the amount of electricity lost due to shading (e.g., from foliage, buildings or terrain). This value defaults to 3 percent.
We strongly recommend transferring the values generated by your solar PV engineering software. Tensor Cloud will support specifying detailed seasonal loss charts going forward.
Cable Losses
Specify the amount of electricity lost when passing through cables on the DC side. This value defaults to 1 percent.
Downtime Rate
Set the percentage of hours of the year that the solar PV installation will not generate electricity due to unavoidable circumstances such as scheduled maintenance or lightning strike.
Defaults to 0 percent.
Do not include expected curtailment volume in this setting, as curtailment assumptions are managed under Scenarios.
Battery
In this tab you can add battery storage to your project to unlock additional value through arbitrage trading and to avoid solar curtailment.
Battery storage is currently available for selected users. If you are interested in enabling operational battery storage management in your workspace, contact Tensor support. Tensor Cloud currently provides support for co-located solar-plus-storage. Support for simulating stand-alone battery storage is planned for future releases.
Lifecycle
Battery Status
Set the current development phase for the battery.
Operational start date
Date the battery will start operation.
Warranty period of the battery
This value determines the operational lifetime of the battery.
Technical specifications
Energy capacity
Total energy capacity of the battery in kWh.
Power capacity
Total power capacity of the battery in kW.
Expected cycle life
Number of cycles before the battery capacity drops below the OEM warranty threshold.
Roundtrip efficiency
Combined efficiency of battery and battery inverter in percent.
Operational settings
Minimum state of charge
Minimum percentage of state of charge allowed when operating the battery.
Maximum state of charge
Maximum percentage of state of charge allowed when operating the battery.
Cycle cost
Sets the estimated cycle cost in JPY/kWh. Operationally, this value determines the minimum required financial return per kWh of energy stored and discharged required for the battery to operate.
For example, if the expected return from selling 1 kWh of energy is 10 JPY, and the cycle cost is 15 JPY/kWh, the battery will not discharge. However, if the expected return is more than 15 JPY/kWh, the battery will discharge.
Danger Zone
Remove battery
Removes the battery from the current asset. If you re-add the battery at a later point, all settings will be retained.
Revenue
Subsidies
Subsidy Scheme
This is the renewable energy subsidy scheme your asset operates under. Choose between feed-in-tariff, feed-in-premium, or no subsidy scheme at all.
Note that FIT assets do not generate any revenues outside of their approved FIT rate, and do not incur imbalance or trading costs.
You cannot add FIT assets to PPAs as regulation does not allow their environmental value to be sold to PPA offtakers. You will not be able to change the subsidy scheme of a FIP asset to FIT unless you disassociate it from its PPA first.
As the feed-in-premium has only taken effect from April 1, 2022, selecting FIP as a subsidy scheme of an asset under FIT will automatically adjust its FIP start date to April 1, 2022 if any earlier date was selected.
Subsidy Start Date
Enter your METI approved start date for either FIP or FIT in this field. FIP subsidy does not allow start dates before April 1, 2022, and FIT does not allow for start dates before January 1, 2012.
Refer to the Date Picker section to better understand how to quickly select the right date.
Subsidy Rate
This is either the FIT or FIP rate approved for your asset in Japanese Yen.
The subsidy will be applied over the lifetime of your system. While Tensor Cloud supports staggered long-term asset monetization patterns where your asset will continue to generate cash flows in the open market beyond its subsidy scheme, you cannot yet chain multiple PPAs per asset.
PPA
Here, you can associate your asset with one of the PPAs you have created in the PPA Section of Tensor Cloud. Each asset can only be assigned to a single PPA at any given time.
Cost
This section contains all CAPEX and OPEX settings for your solar PV asset.
CAPEX
Enter all past or upcoming CAPEX cash-out events here to manage your payment schedule. The timing of these payment events will influence project IRR and NPV.
OPEX
Inverter Warranty Period
Amount of calendar years after which your inverters will have to be replaced. This is often set equal to the manufacturer warranty period of the inverters. Defaults to 10 years.
Note that you will not have to manually specify inverter replacement cash-out events under the CAPEX Payments section as Tensor Cloud automatically accounts for inverter replacement.
Be aware that setting your Asset Lifetime to slightly more than double of your Inverter Warranty Period can lead to an undesirable situation where Tensor Cloud creates an inverter replacement event just before the asset is decommissioned.
Inverter Cost
Cost of replacing the inverters after expiry of the warranty period in Japanese Yen per kWp. Defaults to 10,000.
O&M Cost
Annual cost of providing O&M services to your asset. Defaults to 2,000 JPY/kWp per year.
Insurance Cost
Annual total insurance cost for your asset. Defaults to 1,500 JPY/kWp per year.
Asset Management Cost
Annual asset management cost for your asset. Defaults to 2,000 JPY/kWp per year.
Land Lease Cost
Annual cost of leasing the land the asset is built upon. Defaults to 2,000 JPY/kWp per year.
Decommission Reserve Cost
Japanese regulation mandates solar PV asset owners to build up financial reserves to decommission an asset when it reaches the end of its lifetime. This is set at 0.6 JPY per kWh of generated electricity, excluding curtailment events.
Change this value if you have different requirements.
Property Tax Rate
Annual property tax is levied on the total book value of your asset. Regulation applies a 17% linear annual depreciation on solar PV assets.
Defaults to 1.4% annually of asset book value at that year.