Siemens Solar Microinverters will drive cost and complexity out of residential solar installations and provide more reliability and flexibility in to photovoltaic renewable energy systems.
Inverters take the direct current (DC) voltage produced by the sun and convert its energy into grid-compatible alternating current (AC) voltage. Traditional string inversion technologies commonly added technical and economic barriers, limiting broader access to photovoltaic energy solutions.
We are confident that the Siemens Solar Microinverter technology, integrated with our electrical distribution and safety products set the stage for Siemens to become the premier provider of solar photovoltaic power solutions for businesses, homeowners and builders, said Barry Contrael, director, Siemens Low Voltage Business Unit.
Our new offering puts us in an excellent position to expand into new markets and provide both commercial and private interests affordable access to clean, reliable solar energy.
Microinverters offer a simple and compelling solution to complex system implementation problems and safety issues associated with the DC output of todays photovoltaic modules. Electrical contractors will now have expanded access to the technologies and tools they need to deliver these systems to their commercial and residential customers.
Siemens Solar Microinverters offer users and system designers an array of benefits. For example, with microinverters at each panel, there is no single point of failure. Each photovoltaic panel and microinverter acts as an independent power producing unit, increasing system efficiency and overall system output. With traditional string inversion anything that limits the intensity of the sun on one panel diminishes the output of every other panel on the string. With microinversion this does not occur.
If a shadow covers one panel, its output may be diminished, but all the other panels output remain unaffected, increasing the overall efficiency of the entire system.
Siemens Solar Microinverters provide a modular, scalable platform to connect roof-mounted photovoltaic modules with a typical buildings AC load center or panel board. System designers are now able to use microinversions inherent modularity to implement systems to meet present needs without sacrificing the flexibility to expand the system to meet new power demands or capital budget considerations. Systems can expand one panel at a time or 10 with no limitations.
Siemens will offer a complete solution including Envoy, a communications gateway that collects and transmits data to Enlighten ?a software monitoring platform that provides module by module data analysis and cloud based system control and monitoring. Similarly, all the equipment necessary to maximize energy production and ease installation is provided. For example, straightforward trunk and drop wiring and no string calculations make each microinverter deployment a plug and play affair.
