The year in review: What's happened at PVcase in 2022

In 2022 the whole world was in turmoil. After recovering from the pandemic, we faced a hideous russia’s invasion of Ukraine that shook the globe and affected the majority of spheres. Unsurprisingly, the energy sector was one of those significantly affected fields.

Such circumstances have also altered the role of renewable energy. Renewables have been crucial in increasing Europe’s energy independence and self-sufficiency. Solar, one of the biggest renewable energy markets, has been especially significant in the process.

Amongst many emerging issues, such as the increasing complexities and controversies in supply chains, 2022 also saw a few bright rays of hope. One of them was the passing of The Inflation Reduction Act, which promotes clean energy and encourages domestic energy production in the USA. It also opens new possibilities and funding options for solar in the US. Another was the ever-growing expansion of solar, workforce demand, and trends toward domestication of the supply chains.

2022 was also intense for PVcase due to our challenges in keeping up with the market demands and providing customers with the highest quality tools. As always, our primary goals remained the implementation of innovations and empowering solar energy development by providing top-notch software.

Let’s look at the key PVcase achievements of 2022.

PVcase growth

Despite all the challenges, our company grew in quality and quantity. 59 new employees joined our team in 2022, making us twice as big as the previous year. Our customer and user base have also grown by 64% and 71%, respectively.

PVcasers traveled a lot — in 2022, we spent more than 1000 days on business trips. We are also very proud of achieving and maintaining the 50/50 gender balance and are happy to become a truly global company — our employees are based in 12 different countries.

PVcase forest keeps expanding, too — we planted around 1500 trees in 2022, and we hope to plant no less in 2023.

Products

PVcase Ground Mount customer base kept growing, and at the same time, we persistently developed our fresh Roof Mount and Yield tools. As rooftop solar offers a lot of new possibilities, we hope our Roof Mount tool will contribute to a more sun-powered future. Here are the main innovations and achievements for our individual products.

Ground Mount

– Introduction tutorial. We wanted to increase engagement with the product so that trial users would increase their usage of various features.
– Dual row trackers introduced new challenges and possibilities with relative constraints between the frames.
– Online terrain import. A huge time saver for generating the first layout.
– Revamping electrical. We have made some significant improvements in a short time.
– Pine trees. Especially in December 🎄

Check our release notes for more recent updates.

Roof Mount

– Added PVcase Roof Mount to our product suite to serve commercial & industrial rooftop projects.

Yield

This year, we worked very actively with PVcase clients and significantly expanded the number of testing users. During this period, we collected their feedback, reviews, and suggestions and turned them into product improvements. Among the essential things that ended up in the product, we can mention:

– The inclusion of additional losses;
– The change of format between Ground Mount and Yield;
– The possibility of including a meteo.csv file and grid limitations;
– The possibility of viewing the 3D PV system and its surrounding elements. This allowed the process of evaluating the energy produced in PV systems to be improved by making it more straightforward, automated, and accurate without losing elements of physical reality;
– In terms of accuracy, several internal validation studies have been conducted, the results of which we hope to share soon.

Events

2022 was the first year the in-person events took full force after the pandemic. While the beginning of the year was still relatively constrained by the last round of restrictions, mid-May saw the PV events returning full-on. Many of us missed communicating offline, and that need was felt in the exhibition halls, dinner parties, and other post-show events. People wanted to communicate with each other and finally see their solar-market companions live.

In terms of events, 2022 was record-breaking for us, too — PVcase attended around 40 events all across the globe. Some of them, PVcase team members attended as speakers or participated in panel discussions. One of the main reasons for such active participation was the goal to increase our brand visibility and recognition. Volha Vziatkina, the Marketing events coordinator at PVcase, said, “I was so proud when people came to talk to us and praised our booth for looking stunning and different from others.”

Among the events in which the Product Team participated, we can mention Intersolar Europe 2022 (Munich, Germany) and RE+ 2022 (Anaheim, LA, USA). Both events were extremely busy answering questions from interested people and showing various improvements. We also presented our solutions at The World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC-8), the world’s biggest PV research and development platform.

Rimvydas Trainavicius, PVcase Creative and digital lead, said, “The most significant achievement is to be back at in-person events and be in front of people much more. I believe brand recognition increased significantly throughout this year. We tested new waters and participated in many new events with the idea of getting a better grip on what works and what does not. This approach gave us a better understanding of our target audience and its needs.”

We hope 2023 will be as eventful and even better and brighter. Thanks for following PVcase in 2022, we’ll see you in 2023! Happy New Year!