Chinese tech giant Huawei was showcasing two sets of PV inverters for the Japanese market at this week’s PV Expo, with the company targeting 2GW of shipments into the country this year according to representatives.
Huawei shipped 1.06GW of inverters into Japan last year and is hoping to almost double that figure this year, a spokesman said. The company, which also makes mobile smartphones and other hardware, showed off string inverters as well as data loggers for large-scale, high voltage and super high voltage applications at the show in Tokyo. The inverters, available in 33kW or 40kW configurations, have eight strings each and four MPPTs (maximum power point trackers). They have two DC switches, controlling four strings each, as well as AC connectors and communication lines.
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The inverters only weigh 55kg each, making them easy to handle and install for two people, the spokesmen said. The use of multiple MPPTs meanwhile is considered particularly apt for Japan, where due to the often mountainous or uneven terrain and limited space, PV arrays may be generating differing outputs from different strings of panels.
According to Huawei the inverters are also very reliable with only 0.5% cumulative defect ratio. Additionally, they do not include so-called “vulnerable parts” like fans or fuses, which require frequent inspection and / or replacement.
These products were already available last year, but at this year’s show Huawei also brought inverters for the commercial market, for projects up to 50kW. These inverters (pictured) recently won a prestigious Red Dot design award, and are in 4.125kW and 4.95kW models, requiring either 12 or 10 to be used together to make up to 49.5kW.
These weigh just 10kg and Huawei representatives claimed they can be installed in just 15 minutes by one installer, with DC and AC connections simply snapping into place. They are also connected to Huawei’s mobile monitoring cloud and public internet.