New Product: SolarEdge’s PowerBoxes now support modules of up to 350Wp

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  Solaredge Power Box

Product Briefing Outline: SolarEdge has now expanded its product range to include ‘PowerBoxes’ embedded directly into solar modules, manufactured by SolarEdge partners, for maximum simplicity of installation. According to the company it is the first to offer commercially available PV modules with embedded power optimizers.

Problem: Traditional PV installations suffer from limitations that lead to complicated design and installation, insufficient monitoring and safety, and above all – power losses, due to panel mismatch, partial shading, sub-optimal MPP tracking, etc.

Solution: The three-fold SolarEdge architecture consists of PowerBoxes, PV inverter and monitoring portal. The PowerBoxes are DC-DC power optimizers that perform MPPT and monitoring per individual panel, and maintain a fixed DC string voltage, allowing optimal efficiency of the SolarEdge multi-string PV inverter. In addition, PowerBoxes now support modules of up to 350Wp. The range of single-phase and three-phase inverter now includes inverters of 3.3-15kWp. A new iPhone monitoring application allows monitoring the PV system on the go, for easy, real time site review even in large PV arrays. The system also offers the industry’s first fully automatic solution for electrocution prevention and fire safety. As a result, the SolarEdge system is claimed to provide more power from any given PV system installation, eliminates design constraints, provides complete panel-level and whole-system visibility for monitoring and maintenance alerts, solves all safety hazards and provides anti-theft mechanisms, all while reducing the cost of energy.

Applications: Residential, commercial and utility-scale PV installations.

Platform: The SolarEdge PowerBox, is based on a proprietary ASIC chip set. The web-based monitoring application alerts on underperforming modules and safety events, visually pinpointed on a site layout map and communicates across existing power lines, so no extra wiring is needed. The SolarEdge inverter is specifically designed to work with power optimizers, and exhibits >97% weighted efficiency.

Availability: Currently available.