Bright Sunday funded for pan-European roll-out of solar-as-a-service

Niam Infra Fund has acquired a majority stake in Bright Sunday. With Niam Infra Fund's support, Bright Sunday will get the financial capacity to offer attractively priced solar-as-a-service PPAs to commercial and industrial customers across Europe.  Sverker Åkerblom,...

A long term view on inflation and electricity prices in Sweden

Everything we do at Bright Sunday aims at lowering CO2 emissions on a global level by making the cleantech transformation easy and profitable for commercial and industrial customers. Our business is to offer cleantech as a service with zero upfront investments and...

Somelos Tecidos adds textiles to our Portuguese portfolio

Somelos Tecidos located close to Guimarães north of Porto in Portugal, is a family owned group of twelve companies in the textile industry, with clients all over the world in the upper mid market range. Somelos has a huge electricity need and have therefore always had...

A long term view on Iberian inflation and electricity prices

Everything we do at Bright Sunday aims at lowering CO2 emissions on a global level by making the cleantech transformation easy and profitable for commercial and industrial customers. Our business is to offer cleantech as a service with zero upfront investments and...

Choosing the right PV hardware and software

Everything we do at Bright Sunday aims at lowering CO2 emissions on a global level by making the cleantech transformation easy and profitable for commercial and industrial customers. Our business is to offer cleantech as a service with zero upfront investments and...

Join Bright Sunday as System Performance Manager

Feb 3, 2023

 

Bright Sunday is a cleantech and investment company. Our business is to make the cleantech transformation easy and profitable for commercial and industrial customers. We invest in a solar PV system installed at the customer’s property and offer the customer solar as a service with zero upfront investments and savings from day one – our customers only pay for the electricity at a flat cost per kWh on a 10-25 year contract. Currently Bright Sunday owns and operates a portfolio of 60+ solar PV systems with a total effect of close to 20 MW in Spain and Portugal.

Bright Sunday, founded 2016, is a privately held Swedish company backed by leading Swedish investors. We’re in a scale-up phase and over the coming years we expect to broaden our cleantech service offering and grow significantly in existing markets, in Sweden and across Europe.

We buy system design and construction at a fixed price from local contractors. When the PV system is commissioned, Bright Sunday takes care of system operations (real-time monitoring using 3rd party products), system check-ups and preventive maintenance. System failure or suboptimal performance will trigger alarms. We use internal resources for troubleshooting and preventive maintenance and external partners for cleaning and major corrective service.

Bright Sunday has a small but highly skilled team spread across Spain, Portugal and Sweden. The company language is English. We look for a bright, curious and ambitious System Performance Manager who will be responsible for monitoring, analysis and performance optimization activities for all PV systems in the Bright Sunday portfolio – the purpose is to maximize customer CO2 and cost savings and Bright Sunday revenues. The role allows for significant professional development opportunities in a company growing internationally.

You share our passion for climate impact, renewable energy and to build Bright Sunday as a company. You will report directly to the Operations Manager, Afonso Domingues (this may change as the organization develops).

Responsibilities

  • Operations platform
  • Contact person for external partners (e.g monitoring platform and solar irradiation data providers) – manage backlog, gather new requirements and drive improvement projects
  • Manage the process of onboarding new systems into the operations platform (with speed and quality)
  • Monitoring – alarms management
  • Define and develop alarms and fault classifications
  • Define and develop the alarms and ticket work process
  • Real-time monitoring of the system portfolio – analyze alarms, assign tickets with a defined level of urgency to Bright Sunday staff and follow up on progress
  • Performance analytics and improvements
  • Define and develop “the Bright Sunday issue analysis method” (for central data analysis and onsite analysis)
  • Portfolio analytics
  • Analyze what issues are most common and costliest
  • Define projects with best economic improvement potential
  • Case-by-case analytics
  • Analyze the root cause of recurring or permanent issues or define need for a detailed on-site issue analysis
  • Define issue mitigating activities (together with colleagues and partners)
  • Manage and drive performance improvement activities
  • Performance reporting
  • Follow up the result of improvement activities
  • Develop performance reports (internal and for Hosts)
  • New opportunities analytics
  • Analyze data and define methods to trigger alerts when there is rationale for e.g. PV system cleaning, expansions or implementation of new cleantech such as batteries

Qualifications

You have at least a few years experience from solar PV, preferably as a System Performance Manager or O&M engineer in the Commercial & Industrial segment – you have hands-on experience from on-site issue analysis of systems with suboptimal system performance, you know how the root-cause to an issue can be detected and what can be done to correct it.

Relevant academic background, e.g. a B.Sc or M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Engineering Sciences or Industrial Engineering and Management from a reputable university.

Right to work and live in Sweden (valid permits, if needed).

You are committed, self-motivated and act with the highest level of professional standards. Since you care about customers and the Bright Sunday business you are always prepared to walk the extra mile to get the job done beyond expectations.

Full working proficiency in English.

If you also speak Spanish, Portuguese or Swedish it is very meritorious.

We expect you to spend the most of your time at the Stockholm offices at Norrsken House, Birger Jarlsgatan 57c, Stockholm. 

Send your application in English to recruitment@brightsunday.com.

For questions contact afonso.domingues@brightsunday.com.

 

 

Bright Sunday funded for pan-European roll-out of solar-as-a-service

Niam Infra Fund has acquired a majority stake in Bright Sunday. With Niam Infra Fund’s support, Bright Sunday will get the financial capacity to offer attractively priced solar-as-a-service PPAs to commercial and industrial customers across Europe. 

Sverker Åkerblom, CEO of Niam Infra Fund, says: “We are very impressed by Bright Sunday’s business model and ability to build a multi-market presence in the solar-as-a-service industry. With Bright Sunday we plan to build a €100m portfolio over the coming years across multiple markets in Europe.”

Niklas Engström, CEO of Bright Sunday, says: ”I am very proud of Bright Sunday’s journey so far and with Niam Infra Fund as a majority owner we will get the financial muscles needed to accelerate our growth across Europe. We already have a portfolio of close to 70 solar PV installations and together with existing and new EPC partners we will be able to help even more customers to increase their competitiveness by cutting costs and CO2 emissions.”

Existing management will remain as shareholders in the company.

Bright Sunday’s mission is to cut CO2 emissions by making the cleantech transformation easy and profitable for commercial and industrial customers. We offer solar PV electricity as a service with zero upfront investments and savings from day one. Bright Sunday is headquartered in Stockholm with offices in Spain and Portugal. 

Niam invests in real assets in the Nordics and Europe with a focus on real estate and infrastructure. Through our infrastructure platform Niam Infrastructure, we see great opportunities and value in sustainable investments, and we strive to be part of the driving force for a greener and more sustainable future. This is achieved through innovation, deep knowledge and close collaboration with our partners. For more information, please visit  www.niam.se/en

 

A long term view on inflation and electricity prices in Sweden

A long term view on inflation and electricity prices in Sweden

Everything we do at Bright Sunday aims at lowering CO2 emissions on a global level by making the cleantech transformation easy and profitable for commercial and industrial customers. Our business is to offer cleantech as a service with zero upfront investments and savings from day one.

In Sweden, the total variable electricity cost per kWh is the sum of the price offered by the electricity supplier (often based on the Nord Pool spot price plus margin), variable electricity transmission cost (“elöverföringsavgift”), tax and VAT (added also on the tax).

For electricity produced by a solar PV system Bright Sunday charges a real term “flat” cost per kWh (adjusted annually by the higher of 0% and the inflation) over a contract term of 10-20 years. Relative to the comparable variable electricity cost, Bright Sunday typically offers a discount from day one. Electricity from the solar PV system not consumed can be sold to an electricity supplier at the market price with an administrative fee of approximately 4 öre/kWh and the revenue will be collected by the customer.

Consequently, the Bright Sunday pricing will become increasingly attractive over time if variable electricity costs rise faster than inflation. This document is intended to serve as a guide to help evaluate the Bright Sunday pricing model.

Inflation

Swedish inflation last ten years, 2011-2020, averaged 1.1%. Only once in the past ten years it reached the 2% target as defined by Riksbanken (Swedish Central Bank). According to Riksbanken and Statista inflation is forecasted to rise from 0.7% in 2020 to 1.82% by 2023. Even if inflation over time would reach the Riksbanken target inflation rate of 2% the average over the coming 15 years will most likely be lower.

Inflation can be expected to average 1.5-2% 2020-2035.

Electricity prices

In the two most southern bidding areas, i.e. the areas best suited for solar PV, the Nordpool day-ahead prices for the past ten years, 2011-2020, have averaged 32.22 öre/kWh (SE3 Stockholm / mid Sweden) and 33.63 öre/kWh (SE4 Malmö / southern Sweden). Prices in the two northern bidding areas SE1-SE2 have historically been somewhat lower.

Taking the long view, energy demand is forecasted to grow significantly in coming decades, despite improvements in energy efficiency and injection of solar PV electricity “behind the meter”. On an EU-28 level, demand for electricity will rise by around 17 percent by 2050. The demand increase is largely driven by population growth, general electrification of society and by electrification of transportation and industrial processes.

The increase in demand puts pressure on increased infrastructure investments. Svenska Kraftnät (the Swedish transmission system operator) expects to increase the power transmission fees by 100% 2018-2027, i.e. with over 7% per year. This increase will impact the variable electricity transmission cost.

As electricity demand is forecasted to grow faster than production capacity of relatively cheap renewables such as wind and solar and due to expected price increases of commodities and emission rights, the general expectation is that electricity market prices will increase significantly 2020-2040 and thereafter stagnate and even fall slightly (due to high production from wind and solar).

Energy analyst firm Energy Brainpool forecasts average EU electricity market prices to reach approximately 75 €/MWh by 2035. Looking at historical data the prices at the Nordpool market have been significantly lower than the EU average. In 2019 Swedish energy trader Bixia forecasted that Nord Pool spot prices will reach 49 öre/kWh by 2030. Energimyndigheten (Swedish Energy Agency) forecasts in an EU reference scenario the price (national average) to reach approximately 52 öre/kWh by 2040. Based on an approximation (made in February 2021) of Nordpool’s SE3 forward prices for the rest of 2021 of 30 öre/kWh the compound annual growth rate the coming 15-20 years can be expected to be 3-5%.

Energy tax on electricity has been on a steady and steep increase as well. Since 1996, when the electricity market was liberalized, the compound annual growth rate exceeds 5%.

Looking beyond yearly average prices, in the future market prices can be expected to fluctuate more on a day-to-day basis and be impacted by seasonality – lower prices summertime due to large share of cheap electricity from solar PV and higher in winter due to increased demand and less electricity from solar PV.

Electricity prices can be expected to rise up to 5% per year 2020-2035

Photo by Ola Grönlund

Sources:

Somelos Tecidos adds textiles to our Portuguese portfolio

Somelos Tecidos adds textiles to our Portuguese portfolio

Somelos Tecidos located close to Guimarães north of Porto in Portugal, is a family owned group of twelve companies in the textile industry, with clients all over the world in the upper mid market range. Somelos has a huge electricity need and have therefore always had the sourcing of electricity at the right price as their focus. Bright Sunday is currently installing 1.13 MW of solar PV at their private industrial park of 200,000 square meters.

-We are pleased to start this partnership together with Bright Sunday. Not only is this an important step in our green transition, but making the production more sustainable is the most important issue nowadays for our clients, says Paulo and Antonio Melo, CEOs of the Somelos Group.

The Bright Sunday team is extremely happy and proud to be selected as Somelos’ long term partner as we know they have a deep understanding of their own electricity needs and the energy market as a whole. They are not only one of the leading Portuguese textile manufacturers, they are also as focused on the long term as  we are. We are already exploring a future expansion of the 1.13 MW to a total of over 3 MW, in order to further meet their electricity needs.

A long term view on Iberian inflation and electricity prices

A long term view on Iberian inflation and electricity prices

Everything we do at Bright Sunday aims at lowering CO2 emissions on a global level by making the cleantech transformation easy and profitable for commercial and industrial customers. Our business is to offer cleantech as a service with zero upfront investments and savings from day one.

The current total electricity price offered by the electricity supplier is typically made up of the electricity market price (MIBEL, the Iberian Electricity Market), electricity supplier margin and additional consumption based costs and taxes.

For electricity produced by a solar PV system Bright Sunday charges a real term “flat” cost per kWh (adjusted annually by the higher of 0% and the inflation) over a contract term of 10-20 years. Relative to the price offered by the electricity supplier, Bright Sunday offers a significant discount from day one. Electricity from the solar PV system not consumed can be sold to an electricity supplier at the market price with an administrative fee of approximately 5 €/MWh and the revenue will be collected by the customer.

Consequently, the Bright Sunday pricing will become increasingly attractive over time if electricity market prices rise faster than inflation. This document is intended to serve as a guide to help evaluate the Bright Sunday pricing model.

Inflation

Inflation last ten years, 2011-2020, averaged 1.57% in Spain and 1.16% in Portugal. Inflation 2020 was negative in both Spain and Portugal, largely caused by the Corona pandemic. In January 2021 Statista forecasted inflation in 2025 to be 1.69% in Spain and 1.52% in Portugal. Even if inflation over time would reach the ECB target inflation rate of 2% the average over the coming 15 years will most likely be lower.

Inflation can be expected to average 1-2% 2020-2035.

Electricity prices

In the past years the price differences of the MIBEL day-ahead prices for Spain and Portugal have been negligible. In this document, for reasons of simplicity, the same is also assumed to be true going forward. During 2020 electricity prices were volatile and on average significantly lower than in 2019:

  • 2019: 48 €/MWh
  • 2020: 34 €/MWh

The price drop 2020 broke the upwards trend and was a direct result of lower demand caused by the Corona pandemic. However, since May 2020 prices have been rising and in Q4 they were back to more normal and expected levels (40-60 €/kWh). Early January 2021 the day-ahead prices were high (40-100 €/MWh) and the 12 month future contracts that were traded were priced at approximately 48 €/MWh.

Taking the long view, energy demand in Spain and Portugal is forecasted to grow significantly in coming decades, despite improvements in energy efficiency. On an EU-28 level, demand for electricity will rise by around 17 percent by 2050. The demand increase is largely driven by population growth, general electrification of society and by electrification of transportation and industrial processes.

Capacity increases of low cost renewables, such as wind and solar, take very long time to implement. As demand will grow faster than the renewable production capacity expansion, the general expectation is that electricity market prices will increase significantly 2020-2040 and thereafter stagnate and even fall slightly (due to high production from wind and solar).

Energy analyst firm Energy Brainpool forecasts average EU electricity market prices to reach approximately 75 €/MWh by 2035. Looking at historical data the prices at the MIBEL market have be in the mid-high range compared to the EU average. With a 2020 base value of 34 €/MWh the compound annual growth rate the coming 15 years will exceed 5%. Energy analysts firm Aurora also predicts the MIBEL prices to rise more than 5% the coming 10 years.

Looking beyond yearly average prices, in the future market prices can be expected to fluctuate more on a day-to-day basis and be impacted by seasonality – lower prices summertime due to large share of cheap electricity from solar PV and higher in winter due to increased demand and less electricity from solar PV.

Electricity prices can be expected to rise up to 5% per year 2020-2035

Photo by Matthew Henry

Sources:

  • “HICP – inflation rate”, Eurostat.
  • Energy Brainpool: EU Energy Outlook 2050 – How will Europe evolve over the next 30 years?
  • https://aleasoft.com/cold-snap-fall-wind-energy-production-make-electricity-markets-prices-soar/
  • Aurora Iberian Power Market Forecast, April 2020.
  • The estimated price increase excludes, potentially even faster rising, taxes and consumption based costs (Spain “Recargo por excesos de potencia” and Portugal “Potencia Horas Ponta”).

Choosing the right PV hardware and software

Choosing the right PV hardware and software

Everything we do at Bright Sunday aims at lowering CO2 emissions on a global level by making the cleantech transformation easy and profitable for commercial and industrial customers. Our business is to offer cleantech as a service with zero upfront investments and savings from day one.

Bright Sunday charges customers a flat cost per kWh for the electricity produced by the solar PV system over a 10-20 year contract. Consequently, for the system to generate the expected savings for the customer and the expected revenues for Bright Sunday it has to produce as estimated. This incentivizes Bright Sunday to select premium hardware and to properly monitor and maintain the system.

With correct hardware and maintenance a solar PV system has an expected technical lifetime of more than 40 years. At the end of the contract customers may continue the service or buy the system for €1. Consequently, making the right technology choice is of great financial importance for both Bright Sunday and the customer.

This document is intended to serve as a guide to how Bright Sunday selects hardware and software components.

Smart system control and monitoring

All Bright Sunday solar PV systems will be integrated with the real time monitoring data analytics platform Quantum by QOS Energy. The Quantum platform communicates with the solar PV system via an industry grade GSM router. By using an independent GSM router system communication becomes reliable and independent of customer Internet connections, wifi access etc.

The data used for analysis is pulled from a logging device connected to the inverters and an energy meter placed in the main board. The inverter is the brain of the solar PV system and transforms the DC current produced by the PV panels to usable AC current. The inverter provides data on the status of the PV system and its production level whereas the energy meter provides data on total electricity consumed. To each inverter we specify the optimal logging device and energy meter. Since we only use premium quality three-phase inverters and high quality ancillary equipment we secure both quality power output and 100% control of the entire chain for continuous access to high quality data

To get complete data we also use a satellite service to measure solar irradiance on each installation location. All data is pulled into the Quantum platform, consolidated and made ready for analysis and presentation.

By using the Quantum platform we can share data with our customers on how much electricity the solar PV system is producing, its share of total electricity consumption and how much CO2 the system is replacing in real time and as an annual summary. Customers access data online or through an app provided by Bright Sunday.

The Quantum platform allows Bright Sunday to monitor the system’s performance ratio (which is the quality factor of the system) and provides detailed technical data on how specific system components are performing. Also, the Quantum platform will send alarms to Bright Sunday and our service partners, e.g. in case of loss of production. By continuously monitoring the system’s performance we can optimize service and repairs and secure optimal electricity production.

Setting up a smart system control and monitoring system goes beyond installing just a functioning solar PV system. With the Quantum platform Bright Sunday customers not only get control and peace of mind but also optimal savings.

Sustainable and reliable premium solar PV panels

When choosing PV panels multiple factors are important, e.g. price, performance and availability. PV panels used in Bright Sunday projects must, as a minimum, have a 10 year product warranty and the performance degradation must not exceed 0.7% per year over 25 years. Bright Sunday preferred suppliers are high-volume producers both rated as “tier-1” by Bloomberg New Energy Finance and “leader” by the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC). For the current supplier list please contact Bright Sunday.

A Bloomberg “tier-1” PV panel manufacturer is, simplified, rated as bankable and has own-manufacture products. This labeling provides comfort concerning product quality and the manufacturer’s ability to fulfill potential future warranty obligations.

The SVTC Solar Scorecard is a study where PV panel manufacturers are rated based on an independent and holistic sustainability performance assessment. It covers sourcing of materials (e.g. reporting on use of conflict minerals), production (e.g. reporting of use of energy and emissions and workers rights, health and safety) and end of life recycling commitments. By choosing manufacturers rated as “leader” we aim to secure sustainability in all aspects, which we believe is not only the right thing to do, but also ensures that our customer’s brand will benefit as well.

With Bright Sunday you get “solar as a service” based on a premium quality, sustainable and smart PV system that will maximize climate and financial benefits for many years to come – at zero investment and without the hassle.

 

We work with a limited number of premium inverter manufacturers only – for the current supplier list please contact Bright Sunday. All inverters have undergone rigorous testing and certification in accordance with international standards and country-specific grid connection requirements.

Tier 1 manufacturers have provided own-brand, own-manufacture products to six different projects, which have been financed non-recourse by six different (non-development) banks, in the past two years.

The Solar Scorecard is based on SVTC’s annual survey of photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturers, as well as on prior survey responses, interviews, news stories, and publicly available data. The goal of the Scorecard is to enhance transparency around environmental health, safety, and sustainability issues for communities, workers, and the environment. http://www.solarscorecard.com/2018-19/