Tigo Energy and Folsom Labs Announce DNV GL Approval of Smart Module Modeling Software

The Energy Smart Module Benefits can be Calculated Using DNV-Approved Software

LOS GATOS, Calif., February 26, 2014 - Tigo Energy, the smart module market leader, and Folsom Labs today announced that DNV GL (formerly BEW Engineering) has validated that HelioScope performance modeling software correctly models the energy yield benefit of Tigo Energy's Smart Module solution for solar arrays. "Having a DNV approved tool that demonstrates the energy gains using Tigo's technology in a truly bankable way is a major step forward for the smart module market and specifically our smart module partners," said Tim Kubes, VP of North America for Tigo Energy. "This allows installers and developers to model the ROI of solar systems with smart modules and communicate these benefits to the system owners in a language that banks and financiers understand."


To assess the validity of HelioScope for modeling Tigo Energy's technology, DNV:

*Analyzed the modeling approach and methodology used by HelioScope for shading, mismatch, and Tigo optimizer performance,

*Compared HelioScope to PVsyst at every step in the performance modeling loss-tree ensuring that results are consistent with current bankable modeling standards.

In the report, DNV concluded: "HelioScope is a novel modeling tool for investigating the energy generating performance of PV systems even when subject to non-ideal solar access. It demonstrates agreement with PVSyst modeling results to within 1%, and appears to combine multiple shading effects to achieve consistent results relative to PVSyst."

"We built HelioScope specifically to enable designers to evaluate decisions with an eye towards new technologies," said Folsom Labs CEO Paul Gibbs. "By fully modeling every component in the system individually, HelioScope calculates both the performance and bill-of-material impacts from using Tigo-enabled smart modules."

Tigo Energy's smart module partners and their customers can immediately take advantage of HelioScope's design software. Tigo's partners today include such manufacturers as Trina Solar, Upsolar, Lightway, Luxor, and Silfab among others. "HelioScope provides us a great tool to model the energy harvest benefits of Trinasmart optimized by Tigo Energy," said Jing Tian Director of Marketing for Trina North America. "Our customers can now accurately and bankably model Trinasmart with this third party, DNV-approved software. This allows them to gain a more tangible understanding of the energy yield improvement of Trinasmart technology."

In addition to the bankability validation work, customers have also been doing their own assessment. PsomasFMG, one of the leading North American developers in commercial solar installations also evaluated HelioScope using a real-world Tigo system. "We have been monitoring one of our projects using Tigo Energy's Smart Module technology for over year and have compared it to the HelioScope results" said Gail Sandford COO of Psomas FMG. "We were able to use HelioScope to predict the energy output of the Tigo Energy Smart Modules to within 0.26% of their real-world measured output. We are satisfied that the HelioScope solution works and will give us a bankable tool when proposing future Tigo Energy optimized smart module projects."

Please visit https://helioscope.folsomlabs.com/ to learn more about HelioScope.

To learn more about Tigo Energy and our partners please visit http://www.tigoenergy.com.

About Tigo Energy

Tigo Energy is the market leader in smart module technology for the solar industry. The Silicon Valley Company utilizes a patented technology to increase energy production, simplify design and installation, improve fire safety, and ensure the highest uptime and reliability with cloud-based monitoring. Tigo Energy's highly integrated solution is the first and most successful smart module solution in the industry.

About Folsom Labs

Folsom Labs develops HelioScope, an advanced PV system design tool that that allows PV engineers to design systems 3-5x faster by combining cloud-based design tools with bankable performance modeling. Folsom Labs was founded in 2011 and was awarded a DOE Sunshot in 2013 in recognition of HelioScope's ability to reduce soft-costs within the solar ecosystem.

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