Central Inverters

It is estimated that 10 GW of solar modules in Germany suffer from prematurely aging backsheets, with sites of all sizes affected. pv magazine Germany’s Cornelia Lichner looks at how to detect and repair such defects.

America’s booming solar industry has hit a major speed bump due to supply-chain disruption and the inflationary pressures driven by Covid, war in Ukraine, and trade restrictions with China. As a result, utility scale solar deployment dipped 40%, year-on-year, in 2022.

Zigor has developed a modular central inverter that can convert AC power to DC power for battery charging. It has an output of 3.3 MVA and a DC voltage of up to 1,500 V.

Starting this year, ground-mounted solar modules in Germany can be replaced before the end of their service life, unlocking gigawatt-scale potential for new generation capacity without lengthy permitting processes or the need for new sites. Opinions differ as to what should happen with the decommissioned but still functioning modules, as pv magazine Deutschland’s Sandra Enkhardt reports.

The expected lifetime of PV inverters is significantly shorter than that of modules. In many projects, inverter replacement is included in financial calculations from the start, despite the high costs. Research is being conducted into the causes of faults to develop more durable inverters and components. But plant design can already improve the lifespan of inverters in use today, reports pv magazine Germany’s Marian Willuhn.

China’s Huawei has been named the world’s biggest inverter supplier for the seventh year in a row, followed by Sungrow and Growatt, according to Wood Mackenzie.

The German developer has committed to buying central inverters from Basque manufacturer Vizcaya, with the latter predicting it will supply the goods on a gigawatt scale annually.

Kalyon Enerji aims to finish working on a 1.35 GW solar project in Turkey by the end of this year. The installation, which already features 227 MW of operational capacity, uses central inverters from General Electric.

The latest update to the Photovoltaics Report produced by research organization the Fraunhofer ISE has offered up the usual slew of interesting stats on the state of solar across the continent.

Chinese inverter maker Sungrow revealed a 350 MW solar facility was energized in Loc Ninh County, Binh Phuoc Province. The project secured a FiT of $0.0709 per kWh.