A total of 93 companies from 50 countries submitted their products for consideration for the fifth Intersolar Awards. Cost reduction and network integration were the major themes, which were reflected in the award nominations.
MBJ Services, a young Hamburg-based company won the award for its mobile testing center. The entrepreneurs offer onsite measuring equipment, which features thermal imaging and electro luminescence. It can be mounted to a car trailer.
Meanwhile, Solon was recognized for its SOLquick assembly system. It is a versatile new plug-and-play commercial rooftop solution, which integrates a frameless module and racking into a unitary product. "Developed to reduce overall system cost by targeting installation labor, the SOLquick system is designed to ship directly to the work site, fully assembled with no staging or tools required. The product can be installed in 10 units per man hour," said Solon.
Finally, SolarEdge received the Intersolar Award for its next generation power optimizer, which features its new "IndOP" technology. According to the company, the SolarEdge power optimizer can be installed without the need for additional interface hardware and can operate directly with any inverter. Until now, it could only work with SolarEdge inverters.
In the "Production technologies" section, Isra Surface Vision, Gebr. Schmid/Schott Solar, and Pasan were a few of the companies competing against each other. In the end Gebr. Schmid/Schott Solar won the award for their TinPad, a system for the application of busbars on 152 mm solar photovoltaic cells, based on the application of tin backside contacts in the place of silver.
The TinPad also beat Saint-Gobain's SolarBond ReadyFrame, Pfeiffer Vacuum's A 100 L ES, Oerlikon Solar's ThinFab 140, Isra's in-line multispectral dual photoluminescence inspection system, and Pasan's SpotLIGHT cell tester.
The Intersolar Awards 2012 proved to be another fantastic year for solar technology brilliance. Honored in not three, but four categories this year, after the addition of the new "Solar projects" category, the organizers sought to expand the playing field for novelty. Since the establishment of the award, more than 300 innovations from all around the world have sought to feature on the nominations list.
Isra Vision spoke to pv magazine before the winners were announced, about the impact of being nominated. Founder and chairman, Enis Ersü commented, "The Intersolar Award nomination brings exposure to the company and the product. It means that we have done something right and people think we have produced a good product that is important for the enhancement of PV production."
He added that the companys in-line inspection system has gotten a good response thus far at the Intersolar Europe tradeshow.
As Solar Promotion pointed out, the products nominated should not just be all about increasing efficiencies and producing outstanding products, but should also think about cutting costs to remain competitive in the face of diminishing feed-in tariffs and tax slaps.
The organizers said, "International competition is not just a price war, but a fight to find progressive new technologies." The evaluation criteria that the jury panel has to use to rate the nominees are as follows:
- Degree of technical innovativeness (35%)
- Benefits for industry, environment and society (25%)
- Economic viability (25%)
- Proof of innovativeness (10%)
- Presentation (5%)
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