Featured in Gas busters – 09-2020

New inverter design coming around

Circular economy approaches in the solar industry have hitherto largely pertained to modules and batteries. Inverters, meanwhile, haven’t been in focus as much. Although these devices stand for less than 20% of the overall footprint of PV, they also contain significant volumes of valuable or toxic raw materials. Designing such products with their lifespans in mind has therefore become a critical step for the solar industry.

By

Marian Willuhn

08 Sep 2020

Inverters feature many of the same components as other electrical appliances. The capacitors (orange cylinders on the left) are particularly hard to recycle. Connecting them to the printed circuit board in a way that allows easy separation is crucial to enabling the recyclability of other parts. | Image: SMA Solar Technology

A large portion of design for recycling concerns product assembly. Gluing parts together can mean that they cannot be separated cost efficiently, or ever again at all. Push-fit connections are the preferred method to join components together. Much like solar photovoltaics itself, the concept of a circular economy dates back a few decades. While solar …

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