Earlier today, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, David Lametti, announced, on behalf of the Government of Canada, the details of funding towards this project. This project will be funded through Sustainable Development Technology Canada, who works with Canadian companies to bring ground-breaking clean technologies to market. The Company will use these funds to develop a solar smart grid application. The “module with a brain”, poignantly named Intelligent PV or “iPV” is the latest in a series of moves by the Company to achieve diversification through innovation.
“Striving for operational excellence through flexibility and rapid innovation has been the key to the Company’s resilience and success thus far”, stated Martin Pochtaruk, President of Heliene. “Looking ahead the $3.3 million iPV project, will introduce a new revolutionary product targeting the fast-growing Smart Grid market that will meaningfully diversify Heliene’s business model beyond the existing manufacturing and service streams. Heliene’s bright future is supported by pent up and expanding demand in the key target market segments”.
Heliene’s intelligent photovoltaic module product, branded as iPV, is an integrated solar module system that addresses the market in two (2) ways:
- It provides Real time data visibility & voltage control for utilities and local distribution companies for monitoring and controlling their distribution lines – An unfulfilled need for the jump into the Smart Grid Era, with it a new revenue stream for the Company.
- It is a Plug and play system for a very easily installed solution that generates power & corrects power factor!
The core of the iPV product is driven by a proprietary close-coupling integration of a “brain” into a high quality solar photovoltaic module. This “brain” includes a specialized string optimization inverter, resulting in significantly optimized energy-harvesting, and a control system able to generate reactive power all while providing real time communication to be used for grid visibility and control. Real-time communication and grid control, as provided by iPV, are functions desperately needed with the continued penetration of intermittent renewables into the grid and are not currently available in the market.
For this project Heliene is part of a Consortium including Dressel International Inc., ePOWER (Queen’s University), Cistel Technology Inc., Letrika Sol d.o.o. of Slovenia and the Sault Ste. Marie Public Utility Commission.
