SPI 2011: ULTRA-1400 central inverter from Power-One offers optimized energy harvesting

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  AURORA ULTRA-1400 central inverter uses the rugged outdoor IP65 enclosure with passive liquid cooling is suitable for desert and other harsh environments.

Power-One has introduced its new AURORA ULTRA-1400 central inverter with an output power of up to 1.4MW and is the largest product in the Power-One RE offering for large-scale commercial and utility-grade PV power plants. . Industry-leading power conversion efficiencies of up to 98.7% combined with an extra wide input voltage range and multiple MPPT channels optimize energy harvesting across a wide array of operating conditions.

Problem

Poor uptime and energy harvesting through an increase in downtime caused by the failure at the inverter level or the photovoltaic field is a key concern for utility-scale PV power operators.

Solution

AURORA ULTRA-1400 central inverter uses the rugged outdoor IP65 enclosure with passive liquid cooling is suitable for desert and other harsh environments. The system configuration has internal compartments that segregate the power conversion components to minimize exposure to contaminants thus extending the maintenance cycle and reducing the cost of maintenance. The product is equipped with an internal recombiner compartment with up to 24 individually fused inputs. The circuit topology provides output voltage of 690Vac, which allows lower Balance of System costs through significant reduction of AC losses and the possibility of direct coupling with LV/MV standard transformer used in the large wind industry.

Applications

Large commercial and utility-grade installations.

Platform

Since its modular structure is made of front accessible and extractible subassemblies, installation and maintenance procedures simplified. This large inverter system can be monitored via Ethernet communication and two independent RS-485 communication interfaces for inverter and intelligent string combiner monitoring. The new product is compliant to IEEE 1547, BDEW (German Federal Association for Energy and Water) and FERC 661 (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission).

Availability

October 2011 onwards.