An inverter in every solar panel?Obviously for now, these will be high-ticket items but once the technology matures (five years) they should be very very cheap. Fun time to be alive! Posted by DaveH at July 28, 2009 2:25 PM | TrackBack
Enphase Energy said on Tuesday that it has raised $15 million to ramp up production of its microinverters, a design that it claims significantly boosts the power output and reliability of solar panels.
Rockport Capital Partners led the series C financing, which was joined by existing investors Third Point Ventures and Applied Ventures, the venture capital arm of solar equipment manufacturer Applied Materials.
Enphase Energy's CEO Paul Nahi said the company raised money earlier than anticipated because it's seeing strong demand for its microinverters, which can improve the energy capture of solar panels by 5 to 25 percent.
Solar photo voltaic panels generate direct current from sunlight. An inverter, often placed on the side of a building, is needed to convert that direct current to the alternating current that comes out of electrical outlets.
Typically, one single inverter is dedicated to a rooftop array of panels for a homeowner.
Enphase Energy, by contrast, has built a DC-to-AC inverter that is placed on each single panel.
That design is more reliable than a centralized inverter and more efficient, so panels can generate more electricity, Nahi said. The company started shipping its microinverters earlier this year and has signed on with a number of panel distributors and installers, he said.
Just thinking...
Synching voltage and current to the grid actually doesn't sound all that difficult, at least for low power levels. A PIC or just a couple of op-amps could do it. The power converter is a different story. But up to around a kilowatt some low cost, conventional options are available.
Power factor correction chips, such as MC34262 work by synthesizing a resistive input impedance with an up-converter synchronized to the line. Doesn't seem like much of a stretch to get it to synthesize a negative input resistance, which will feed power back into the line with a sinusoid shape.
Posted by: Man Mountain Molehill at July 29, 2009 1:17 PM