With four million products sold in over 100 countries (almost all off-grid) solar power company Morningstar have received international recognition for their solar charge controllers and inverters. TowerXchange speaks to Jim McGrath, Director Sales & Business Development at Morningstar Corporation on the company’s ambitions to serve the rapidly growing telecoms and tower renewable energy market and their vision for the future of solar power systems in assisting with companies’ “green agendas”, cost optimisation and operational efficiency strategies.
TowerXchange: Please introduce Morningstar to our readers – where do you fit in the telecoms infrastructure ecosystem?
Jim McGrath, Director Sales & Business Development, Morningstar Corporation: We have been the solar charging experts in off-grid PV for over a quarter of a century, and—unlike many other companies—have the same management and ownership. We’re employee-owned, which is the main reason why we are so focused on maintaining the industry’s lowest hardware failure rate and highest reliability. We have over 20 patents and a dozen trademarks, leading the field in off-grid power conversion technology. Our low turnover and team approach fosters an environment where technical creativity thrives, resulting in an IP portfolio that’s very broad and comprehensive covering; thermal engineering, mechanical design, charging and control, advanced electronic topologies, safety systems, and more.
Specifically, in the telecoms ecosystem, Morningstar’s fit is in any application that requires secure and reliable power. We provide components or full turnkey power systems for any tower site - small or large, in pure-solar or hybrid configurations.
One common application is retrofitting existing grid-powered sites to be a hybrid of grid and solar, where solar power has priority over the grid’s power. We call this solar priority, and it provides immediate benefits for network resiliency where the grid is susceptible to outages while lowering utility expenses and meeting sustainability objectives.
Recently we have acquired Apollo Solar’s designs and trademarks to provide complete power systems to Towercos, ESCOs, MNOs, and power systems integrators. Apollo Solar has deployed solar at over 1,200 BTS tower locations in Africa and has an outstanding reputation for quality and reliability. Our combined team now offers the best components and systems in the telecommunications industry.
TowerXchange: As a provider of solar controllers and inverters selling over 4 million products in over 100 countries your solution is clearly proven in the field, but please tell us about the deployment of your solution for telecoms – who is using it and what results have been achieved?
Jim McGrath, Director Sales & Business Development, Morningstar Corporation: Our systems are in all seven continents, so to call our deployments “diverse” is a gross understatement. Specifically for telecoms, examples include NorthwesTel which operates a network of systems across Canada’s vast Northwest Territories, where one has to traverse forests, lakes and tundra to access a facility. Go a little further north and we’re with Verizon in the Arctic. Or turn south and across a content to Verizon’s hybrid microwave uplink systems in the Mojave Desert in California, or across the Atlantic to remote telecom sites in Egypt and across North Africa. In sub-Saharan Africa, we are in Africa Mobile Networks’ 1500+ towers that provide Network As A Service (NaaS) to MNOs like MTN and Orange. And the Apollo systems are in 9 diverse African countries, Latin America, and the Philippines.
What these very different environments have in common are two things; first, extremes. Not only does the equipment have to perform optimally in extremes of heat and cold but the solar controller has to step-up and protect one of the most expensive system components - the batteries, which can be damaged by imprecise charging under extreme temperature conditions. Second is accessibility. Any failures requiring a service call are very costly, in terms of both downtime and travel time. Therefore, Morningstar’s hallmark features such as superior thermal design (no fans, no moving parts to fail) and hardened, weatherised construction to resist the elements are inherent advantages over any other brand.
But these are just that - extremes, and exceptions proving the rule. Morningstar is increasingly being used anywhere there’s demand for “greening the network” and improving sustainability. It’s part of the trend in using off-grid solar for more than strictly remote, off-grid applications. For example, the proliferation of urban cell sites using repurposed or legacy structures (water towers, industrial chimneys, old signage, and many more) is creating entire networks where the expense of crossing that “last mile” to grid electricity is prohibitive and solar is the only viable option. For resiliency, solar is proving more cost-effective and reliable for back-up power than generators which require regular fueling and maintenance. Our charge controllers achieve higher system efficiency through TrakStar™ MPPT technology and also are network compatible with Modbus and SNMP open protocols, making them ideal for system designers who want to extract every Watt possible out of their PV investment along with effectively monitor and control their networked power systems.
TowerXchange: Please compare the TCO for a fairly typical off-grid cell site running dual diesel generators with a similar site where your energy storage solutions have been installed.
Jim McGrath, Director Sales & Business Development, Morningstar Corporation: We have a detailed case study about cost reduction and greenhouse gas elimination that you’re welcome to read, but here’s a quick overview. Starting in September 2012, Camusat installed Morningstar’s Apollo systems on towers owned by Orange. These pure solar systems are installed in Mali, Senegal, Madagascar, Morocco, Egypt, Niger, and Centrafrique, all with challenging climates. With over 1,000 systems now running, some for the entire eight-year period, the results regarding reliability, cost, battery life, and greenhouse gas avoidance are statistically significant.
The bottom line is that these systems have to compete against the costs of diesel-generated electricity. To compare solar and diesel costs, it is essential to understand that the solar energy systems are primarily a single up-front capital expense to purchase and install. The ongoing fuel and maintenance costs or operating expenses of a pure solar energy system are very close to zero. The batteries are costly and have a finite cycle life of between five and ten years, but lithium is extending this period by up to 2X.
The typical diesel generator plant costs are very different from the solar plant. The up-front capex for diesel is lower than solar. Each generator costs about US$15,000 installed. With two generators and the fuel tank, the complete energy system might be US$35,000.
However, the ongoing opex for diesel is very high. The costs include the fuel transported to each site, maintenance visits to change oil and filters every ten days, replacement of the generators every two years. It is this opex which the new solar-based systems had to address.
To compare one time, upfront capex with ongoing opex, we converted both items to TCO over time. The results show that the TCO of solar energy systems is lower than diesel generators after one to two years. Many factors determine the payback time, but the diesel fuel cost delivered to the site is the most significant.
We recorded the price of solar PV modules and the price of diesel fuel throughout this case study. The capex for solar has come down sharply. The cost of silicon solar modules dropped from US$1.75/watt in 2010 to US$0.35/watt in 2017. It is now just 20% of what it was in 2010 and is relatively consistent. The point is that since a pure solar system is essentially capex it can be financed at a fixed amount per month and duration. So the cost of energy is flat, well known, and goes to zero at some point.
TowerXchange: What is the typical asset lifecycle of your solutions, how do your solutions extend the lifecycle of other equipment on the site, and how can it be maximised?
Jim McGrath, Director Sales & Business Development, Morningstar Corporation: The fact is, most Morningstar components made are still in service today and have long outlived both the batteries and power conversion components (inverters) to which they were originally connected. Therefore it is hard to predict what their lifecycle could be - it’s closer to the PV modules themselves.
But in some cases, how they extend the lifecycle of other equipment is easy to calculate. In a hybrid off-grid installation, just take the fuel and maintenance cost of a generator running 24/7 (which will vary depending on a number of variables), calculate the “solar offset” achieved by switching to clean, maintenance-free solar electricity when enough sunlight is available, which reduces fuel cost and extends generator TBO (Time Between Overhaul). Factor in on-site energy storage which further reduces generator dependence, and you’ll see hourly generator use greatly reduced or even eliminated, depending on insolation conditions.
TowerXchange: Can you tell us more about your TIP (Telecom Infra Project) with Facebook?
Jim McGrath, Director Sales & Business Development, Morningstar Corporation: TIP recognises that connectivity through telecom infrastructure is increasingly important to rural development. Access can provide the foundation for business, education, public services, and social links.
In addition to TIP fostering solutions for lower-cost, disaggregated telecom infrastructure, it is recognised that a primary systemic issue with providing access to the unserved is the low availability of reliable and cost-effective power sources. This is where Morningstar can help, and why we’re a proud member of TIP.
In Q3 & Q4 of 2020, Morningstar participated in TIP’s Rural Site Configuration (RSC) Plugfest and several TIP members, including vSAT and RAN suppliers. The testing was rigorous and helped TIP members verify complete end-to-end disaggregated solutions for rural connectivity.
Morningstar’s CommStar™ self-contained solar powering system is debuting now and hosts the power system reference architecture tested in the TIP RSC Plugfest. We designed it primarily for smaller, remote lower-powered applications employing the latest in low-power RAN and vSAT backhaul connectivity. It’s intended for MNOs expanding their networks to less densely populated coverage areas who want “edge of the network” coverage to reach new subscribers. Effectively reaching these customers requires a different opex strategy to meet the necessary cost-per-customer targets while still providing the reliable, manageable network that their traditional customers have come to expect.
CommStar-type systems can power these new rural deployments entirely with renewable energy sources without depending on generators, which is a key contributor to concerns about long-term opex and on-site reliability. They have far lower power consumption than systems using traditional macro-towers, because they employ more capable and efficient software-driven radio networks.
TowerXchange: How do you adapt your solution as the load on a site increases over time? Sites with 5G will require more power, how are you working with the industry to meet this requirement?
Jim McGrath, Director Sales & Business Development, Morningstar Corporation: First, our solar power systems are entirely scalable and can grow with higher load demand and rising tower tenant occupancy. There are also several system efficiency enhancements that are essential to support the higher load demands of 5G. Traditional rectifiers used in grid-tied and diesel generator powered systems to convert AC to DC are notoriously power-hungry and inefficient. Morningstar charge controllers are 99% efficient, the highest in the industry, and generate very little waste heat like a rectifier. And since they are fanless and scale in parallel architectures, their overall reliability is far higher than a rectifier’s.
PV module efficiency is also improving, and arrays are now producing 20% more power in the same footprint than they were just five years ago.
Finally, battery chemistry transition from lead-acid to lithium delivers at least 10% higher charging and discharging efficiency, meaning more real energy capture and useability. Lithium’s ability to discharge deeply also results in more useable capacity. One benefit of displacing lead-acid with lithium is needing less lithium amp hour storage capacity in a system due to its efficiencies. Sometimes we see as much as 35% less storage required with lithium vs lead acid. Towercos, ESCOs, and MNOs are all getting on the lithium train in a big way, and Morningstar has taken a leadership position through its Energy Storage Partner™ program, now consisting of over 20 lithium storage companies around the world.
TowerXchange: Nigeria’s government is doubling its electricity tariff, pushing towercos and MNOs to rely even more heavily hybrid systems, when do you envisage solar will dominate energy supply in Africa?
Jim McGrath, Director Sales & Business Development, Morningstar Corporation: I think the best guide is looking at the rate at which wireless telephony grew in Africa and other developing countries, since the physical typologies are actually similar. Voice and data communications were once rigidly tied to “hard infrastructure” - copper lines, central offices, et cetera. Wireless technology and cellular communications made “leapfrog” developments possible in developing nations. They no longer had to wait for and invest in the same physical wired networks with this new, localised transmission technology.
Solar electricity is the same with operators, settlements, cities and towns and even entire countries able to bypass the wired stage and go straight to localised electricity production and access with solar. So I envision that the application, penetration rates and growth curve for solar will at least be equal to what we saw for mobile networks, and probably even surpass it since the second needs the first (sources of electricity) to continue its growth.
TowerXchange: What are your visions for the future of your company? Where do you see yourselves in five years from now and which telecoms markets excite you the most in terms of business development?
Jim McGrath, Director Sales & Business Development, Morningstar Corporation: We tend to think in terms of challenges and opportunities of a more technical nature. They are:
Challenge: expanding adoption of lithium batteries for energy storage. This will require smoother and more effective integration, charging support (no unified interface) and monitoring. Our Energy Storage Partners program is a step in that direction, where Morningstar and selected battery brand partners collaborate and provide pre-determined settings to make it easier for installers to design lithium storage into new systems or drop lithium batteries into existing ones.
Opportunity: lower cost PV means systems can and will get bigger, with higher capacity chargers and inverters scaling accordingly. That represents significant additional hardware sales.
Opportunity: data access, or more specifically making sense of data (big data). The challenge of reliable remote connections affects this; expect to see more embedded data systems that don’t require constant connectivity to be effective.
