New Generation Inverters to Drive Down Cost of Solar Power: Interview with Silicon Valley’s ArrayPower
Parallel, Decentralized, Built-In Module Design
Suffice to say that events gathered momentum from there. ArrayPower staff began working with the solar power systems manufacturer to fully integrate Array’s inverters with the company’s solar modules at its plant.
The result is the world’s first three-phase sequenced AC solar power inverter capable of providing grid-ready, commercial-grade power, according to Arienzo, one that increases efficiency, improves output performance, and enhances reliability and durability as compared to other inverters on the market. Solar power systems equipped with ArrayPower’s Sequenced Inverter will also prove to be a lot cheaper to install and maintain, she said.
Array’s use of semiconductor-based digital and solid state electronic components as opposed to traditional components comprised of metal and liquid electrochemical components, such as electrolytic capacitors, is one key to the advantages and benefits Array’s Sequenced Inverter. The inverters being incorporated into the solar modules at the factory, and the way in which modules and arrays are linked to form a solar power system are two others.
Incorporating the inverters in each module at the factory decentralizes the overall system architecture, resulting in more efficient and reliable electrical output. Connecting modules and arrays in parallel rather than in series also enables more modules to be grouped in larger arrays, which means less wiring and equipment. That translates into lower costs.
As is the case with modules connected in series, this enables the low voltage DC produced by solar modules to be stepped up to the higher voltages required for inverters to convert DC to AC, but connecting them in parallel results in improvements to overall power output and efficiency. Again, it also decentralizes the production of electricity, reducing or eliminating the possibility of a single point of failure compromising the overall system’s ability to produce grid-quality electricity.
Reducing Solar’s ‘Leveled Cost of Energy’
It’s this combination of elements – employing digital, semiconductor-based and solid state electronics to manufacture its inverters, integrating them with solar modules during module manufacturing and wiring solar power modules and arrays in parallel – that Array believes will help drive down solar power systems’ “Leveled Cost of Energy” (LCOE).
Likewise, it’s these elements, coupled with ArrayPower’s proprietary inverter design – the company’s been granted six patents and has another 37 in the pipeline – that leads management to believe that they’re a step ahead of the competition, at least for the moment.
“We’re very happy regarding how we’re positioned at the moment,” business development director Nick Cravalho told Clean Technica. “We’re really the first integrated, three-phase sequenced AC inverter on the commercial market…We’re gaining market traction, the technology is in the field, we’re getting real data and our partners are now actively selling the technology.”
An Organization ‘Light on its Feet’
As an organization, ArrayPower’s designed and built to be “light on its feet,” with minimal operating overhead, and to be able to scale up volumes quickly, Arienzo explained. “We’re completely focused on delivering high performance, reliability, durability at the right price point [to the commercial market],” Cravalho added.
One key to this is a business model focused on selling directly to module manufacturers. Another is contracting with a global manufacturer headquartered in the US to have its inverters manufactured offshore Singapore on the nearby Indonesian island of Bataan. Its cable harnesses are manufactured in Europe.
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