SMA

Chinese manufacturers including Trina Solar, Risen Energy and JA Solar have established a group to design and produce bigger PV modules. The 39-member alliance also includes inverter suppliers including Huawei, Sungrow and SMA.

The solar industry faces many challenges in its move to become truly sustainable and that goal is imperative, rather than being simply a luxury, if the sector is to achieve terawatt scale. pv magazine’s first Sustainability Roundtable took place on June 10 and included discussion as to why sustainability matters in PV and which business, regulatory and technological approaches can be applied to achieve truly “green” solar power. A video of the event can be streamed online.

The first session of the pv magazine Virtual Roundtables Europe on June 9 showed that the performance of PV arrays can be boosted with effective measures – proving it’s more than just theoretical. The evaluation of a portfolio of 70 plants prompted a performance boost of 8.4%. The video of the event is now online.

The Western Downs solar farm will deploy German power electronics made in Australia, with SMA announcing that it has picked up a contract to supply the 400 MW (AC) project.

The German manufacturer secured around 60% of the turnover expected this year in the first three months alone but still posted a net loss for a company relying on strong pre-Covid-19 activity in the U.S. and European markets.

Analysis from Wood Mackenzie shows global inverter demand grew 18% last year. The ten largest inverter suppliers accounted for 76% of the global trade.

The German inverter maker last year saw shipments and revenue rise by 35% and 20%, respectively. The company claims measures taken to reduce its cost structure are bearing fruit.

Earlier this month, pv magazine held its first webinar under the UP sustainability initiative, looking at greenwashing versus verifiable sustainability. Initiative partner SMA and Professor Dustin Mulvaney shared their insights in a lively discussion. Many questions were submitted by the webinar participants. What follows are those we did not have time to answer.

Two projects have been deployed by Canopy Power on private islands in Indonesia. The two 52.5 kW/77 kWh mini-grids were the only alternative to diesel generators due to the lack of a connection with the grid on the island of Batam. The projects – which rely on REC Solar modules, SMA inverters and a storage system from Tesvolt – provide around half of the energy required on their respective islands.

A project on Isabela Island in Ecuador’s Galapagos archipelago has given its 3,500 inhabitants energy generated by local resources, including plant oil produced on the continent. Preferable to a logistically challenging and hyper expensive extension of the mainland grid, if the $13 million island system were installed today, it would be cheaper than when it was contracted four years ago.