More than one year after the completion of the installation project developer KRAFTWERK Renewable Power Solutions flew to Chile to visit and inspect the plant on March 11, 2013 together with power grid operator Emelat S.A. and confirmed its operation is performing to or better than expectations.
KRAFTWERK Renewable Power Solutions, a German company specializing in the development and implementation of intelligent solar power plant solutions, planned and built the 307.2 kWp installation for Subsole, which is one of Chiles largest fruit exporters. It was completed and opened in January 2012.
In total, one AURORA PVI-330.0 central inverter as well as six AURORA STRINGCOMB string combiners were installed by a team of German and Chilean specialists to convert the energy produced by 1,280 PV Canadian Solar modules. The solar park, which was designed for agricultural use, is located in the Atacama desert in the north of Chile.
This region is one of the most arid, and also has the highest level of sun radiation worldwide, making it the perfect location for a solar installation. Spread across one hectare of land, the solar park is expected to generate approx. 600,000 kWh of electricity per year, which will be used primarily to operate the ground water pumps for irrigating the table grapes grown on site.
Thanks to a sophisticated schedule for the irrigation, which follows the sun, more than 90 percent of the generated solar energy are used directly. The weather data from an on-site weather station as well as daily energy consumption measurements conducted on the water pumps build the basis for this.
Any excess power Subsole produces will be fed into the public power grid. The company, which now is no longer affected by high Chilean electricity prices, is convinced its investment in the new solar park was a wise decision: Subsole is planning to expand the solar park to several megawatts to generate power for sale on the spot market, to other fruit growers and mining companies located in the region.
Due to the specific requirements of this solar park, we were looking for a reliable inverter solution, which offered maximum energy harvesting as well as easy maintenance procedures, said Dr. Karsten Schulte, Managing Director at KRAFTWERK. Since the PV industry in Chile is just emerging and the availability of skilled technicians is just starting to build, it was crucial for us that the inverter manufacturer also offered a good technical support. Since Power-One met all our requirements, we decided to deploy their AURORA PVI-330.0 central inverters.
We are delighted that KRAFTWERK chose our inverters for this project, said Gerhard Schackert, Sales Director for Northern EMEA at Power-One. As the first solar park with Power-One inverters in Chile, this installation marks a significant milestone for Power-One strengthening our position in this region of the world, which offers a large potential for solar energy.
