Day One: Solar Power International 2008 Exhibits
Recap of interesting solar power products we saw today at Solar Power International Conference in San Diego, CA. Today we will cover interesting product developments that are hitting the market in the near future.
Sanyo Electric has decided to increase the cell size to 5 inches compared their previous version of the HIT solar panels which had a cell size of 3 inches, this means Sanyo will be able to streamline their manufacturing processes to reduce costs, thus passing on the savings to the customers. For the customer, the increased cell size produces even more watts per square foot then previous models. Sanyo Electric Solar Panels are known for high efficiency and are leading the market in terms of solar panels that convert the most sunlight into electricity.
Enphase, the company that makes the “micro inverter” and is developing the next generation of their mirco inverter which is claimed to make sense financially on both large scale and small solar power systems. The enphase mircoinverter is different from traditional inverters because it allocates the inveter onto each solar panel versus a string of solar panels plugged into one inverter. Having a mirco inverter behind each solar panel increases overall system efficiency, is resilient to shading issues and provides super accurate monitoring solutions that you can track on a solar panel basis.
A new slim residental inverter from SMA that will include blue tooth capability for wireless system monitoring, advanced on screen monitoring and a cool red and black color. This inverter has is transformerless which means that they can pack more electronics into a slim design and still provide the same performance and realibility as previous SMA Sunny Boy models. This new inverter his still in development and more news about the product will be released soon by the company.
We’ll feature more products tomorrow stay tuned!
