SolarEdge, one of only two companies at present to produce Tesla Powerwall-compatible inverters, will launch its expanded range of residential and commercial solutions at Intersolar Europe next month.
The Israel-headquartered inverter manufacturer, which is perhaps best known for specialising in power optimisers which monitor a PV system at module level, will launch the most up to date version of StorEdge, a DC-coupled storage solution for the home.
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Intended to go on the market by the end of this year and offered as a retrofit to anyone with a SolarEdge inverter installed since January 2013, StorEdge can manage a homeowner’s PV system and battery, allowing for maximised self-consumption while providing backup power, the company claims.
Starting with perhaps the most obvious example, Germany, the SolarEdge residential solution aims to be suited to those markets where the falling away of subsidies for solar output has led to households saving money on bills by using their own PV-generated power rather than receiving payments under a feed-in tariff (FiT).
In some other regions, at present the system’s longer duration storage will only be sold on the basis of providing backup. However, as we have already seen from Tesla’s example in the past week or two, new business models for energy storage are being investigated and trialled by the EV maker and others, including its partners SolarCity in the US and utility Lichtblick in Germany.
In rarer markets where time-of-use charges exist for households, the combination of PV, battery and StorEdge can provide arbitrage i.e. saving money by buying electricity in when it is cheapest. Some commentators have predicted that time of use charges will become more prevalent throughout the world’s electricity markets in future.
As SolarEdge reiterated in publicity materials around the new launch, StorEdge was developed with compatibility with Tesla’s residential Powerwall battery range in mind. At present Fronius and SolarEdge are the only makers of Tesla battery-ready inverters, although the EV maker is said to be looking to widen the net and find more partners.
Also to be launched by SolarEdge at the show in Munich will be three models of three phase inverters for commercial customers. Designed to work in conjunction with SolarEdge’s commercial power optimisers, the company claims it can allow for PV strings of up to two-and-a-half times the length traditionally seen on commercial installations. There are three models, two, the SE25K (25kW) and SE27.6K (27.6kW), are designed for low voltage installations, the other, SE33.3K (33.3kW), is designed for medium voltage systems that are large enough to require the use of a transformer onsite. All three are meant to reduce the number of inverters required per system, thereby improving the system's ROI. The commercial range will be available from July, while the residential range is quoted as being prepared for launch by the end of this year.