Tuesday, July 5, 2011

2011: The rise of solar inverters - ElectroIQ

http://www.electroiq.com/articles/pvw/2011/06/2011--the-rise-of.html?cmpid=E
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2011: The rise of solar inverters

June 3, 2011 - One of the last steps in solar power delivery is flexing its
muscles.

Solar PV developers, owners, and financial backers are increasingly looking
to improve their projects' economics with both reliability and power
delivery, especially in the current climate of tightening incentive programs
(take a bow, Italy). It's a story about both technology and "bankability."
And PV inverter technology has a play in both fields, explains GTM Research
analyst MJ Shiao in a new report.

"Advances in PV inverter technology promise to improve the commercial
viability of solar power," Shiao writes. In an increasing world of regional
solar incentive cutbacks (FiTs) and competitive PPAs, long-term project
generation and reliability are becoming crucial for project bankability, and
inverter technology will continue to attract greater attention.

Solar inverters can be a key for solar project cost savings -- inverter
losses account for more than half (59%) of total PV project failure costs,
GTM notes. Meanwhile, inverters can offer improved power quality and
operability -- grid-support features (fault ride-through, reactive voltage
support) for larger systems make PV more grid-friendly, while microinverters
and distributed power optimizers for smaller-scale systems can reduce
installation costs and boost performance. (Distributed optimization and
microinveter companies more than tripled their shipments in 2010, in a year
seeing 21GW of overall global inverter shipments.)

The brightening spotlight on inverters also means challenges and
opportunities for the suppliers themselves, from regional suppliers looking
to expand to large electrical conglomerates seeing solar as a growth engine
-- and their efforts to differentiate will drive new technology development,
Shiao notes. Europe's dominance in the inverter sector will continue to be
challenged by regional players in emerging markets such as North America and
China. SMA, Power-One, Kaco New Energy, and Fronius make up >61% of global
PV inverter shipments, but "a new guard of US- and Asia-based manufacturers"
will expand -- and EU-based incumbents must diversify and establish new
market inroads to avoid stagnation.


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