Your daily dose of photovoltaic technology developments and solar news

Product Briefing Outline: SunLink has introduced a new ground mount system to its family of commercial and utility-scale module mounting products. The new technology joins the Company’s flagship roof mount system and the recently released thin film solution for Nanosolar. Designed as a total system to save you procurement, management, and deployment time, the patent-pending ‘Ground Mount Solution’ is available as a ballasted or post-mount solution, making it ideal for a wide variety of installations and situations.

Product Briefing Outline: Enphase Energy is introducing the D380 ‘TwinPack’, a new product optimized for commercial installations. The D380 TwinPack is comprised of two Enphase Microinverters in a single enclosure and an innovative cabling system, further reducing Balance-of-System costs and installation time.

Product Briefing Outline: SunPower has introduced the next generation of its T20 Tracker, which it claims is the most powerful solar tracker on the market today, incorporating SunPower's high-efficiency 128-cell, 400-watt solar panels for maximum energy output.

Product Briefing Outline: Xandex Solar, the solar products and services division of Xandex is launching the ‘SunMizer’ DC power optimizer for photovoltaic panels. SunMizer is a new DC power optimizer that increases solar energy harvest by recovering power that is lost when shade falls on a solar panel.

Product Briefing Outline: Technology used in GE’s wind turbines, is now being applied to large-scale PV systems. Building on a platform of power electronics, monitoring and controls that enhance wind energy grid integration, GE has developed a 600 kW solar inverter, which includes grid-friendly features to deliver performance in large-scale solar installations similar to conventional power plants.

Unlike news stories, which generally have a short lifespan, but higher visitor levels, new product reviews can often prove popular for several months or more. Excluding the PV-Tech homepage, the Product Briefings section is the fourth most visited section of the site in 2009.  In collating the Top 10 new product reviews of 2009, many product reviews in particular stood out for having an extremely long shelf-life that with some started in 2008, yet continued to attract readers throughout the year.

Product Briefing Outline: SolarEdge Technologies distributed DC power harvesting systems maximizes power generation of residential and large-scale PV sites by up to 25 percent, while reducing costs and complexities for panel manufactures, systems integrators, installers and owners.

Product Briefing Outline: Optics Balzers has developed interference filters satisfying customer-specific requirements. The ‘SoFi Solar Filters’ offer the correct spectral characteristics, long-term stability and accurate reproducibility even when manufactured in large volumes.

Product Briefing Outline: Groupo Clavijo has developed an advanced double-axis solar tracker specifically for the U.S. market using a patented hydraulic brake system in the azimuth movement. Miller Welding will manufacture and commercialize it in the United States, under a partnership agreement with Clavijo.

Product Briefing Outline: Renusol GmbH has introduced three new mounting systems-ConSole DS, VarioSole DS and InterSole XL-for thin film solar modules using a new injection-compression technology. They are designed for thin-film modules and solar plants for industrial roofs. The thin-film laminates are anchored in linear fashion with this system, while integral anti-slip protection makes installation faster and simpler. Europe-wide patents have already been filed for all new systems.