Swiss electrification company ABB has launched a new power conversion portfolio for the solar PV and battery energy storage system (BESS) industries.
The new portfolio, dubbed ‘Proteus’, shares a name with a line of PV and battery inverters belonging to Gamesa Electric; ABB acquired Gamesa Electric last year. ABB noted that the new Proteus portfolio will include products for both the solar PV and BESS sectors.
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Products for the former industry include 4.7MVA central inverters that ABB claims can deliver conversion efficiency of 99.45%, which are the same benchmarks set by the Gamesa Electric line of PV inverters.
BESS products include bi-directional converter stations and “advanced control systems” that can facilitate services like grid-forming and black-start operation.
“The global energy transition requires proven, scalable and reliable power conversion solutions,” said Daniel Gerber, business line manager of renewable power at ABB, who noted that the company has installed more than 120GW of power conversion capacity to date.
While the company has not provided further technical details on its new products, it said that it would present its new Proteus solar inverter at next week’s Intersolar Europe event, to be held from 23-25 June in Munich, Germany.
The acquisition of Gamesa Electric and launch of the Proteus portfolio is also significant as this marks ABB’s re-entry into the power electronics sector, from which it divested its remaining assets in March 2020.
Following the Gamesa Electric acquisition, Gerber said that ABB would look to “capture growing demand” for products like inverters that are necessary to deploy solar PV on the scale necessary to facilitate the energy transition. This week, ABB described solar PV as “the most scalable and cost-competitive clean energy source”.
The news also follows the passage of an important milestone for the European renewable energy sector: according to PV Tech Market Research, Europe now has more than 100GW of operational inverter manufacturing capacity. Earlier this week, PV Tech Market Research’s Mollie McCorkindale told PV Tech that Europe is “a world leader” in the technology, at a time where ABB is looking to re-enter the sector.
