Balance of System

Centurion in South Africa will be the lucky recipient of manufacturer DEGER’s 50,000th German-made tracking systems.

Chinese solar technology company Clenergy has won a bid to build a 30MW PV plant in Alar, in the desert region of Xinjiang, China.

Clenergy, a manufacturer of rooftop mounting systems, is supplying a customised version of its PV-ezRack SolarRoof system for use in a 7MW project in Haikou on Hainan Island, China.

AlsoEnergy revealed that it is currently monitoring over 200 solar installations throughout the US and Canada. The installations are found on public schools, colleges and universities, with the company providing energy production monitoring data, along with educational kiosks at each location.

In response to the solar industry's ever-increasing pressure to drive down system costs, companies Ampt, KACO New Energy, LTi REEnergy and REFUsol have announced the launch of the HDPV (High Definition PV) Alliance. The HDPV Alliance will leverage open technology standards to optimize the design and deployment of inverters, cabling, combiners and associated labour costs to deliver a lower total system cost and higher performance. Companies that join the Alliance are able to offer differentiated value and make it easy for their customers to identify and source products featuring the HDPV advantage.

Germany’s K2 Systems has launched its newest global arm; a US division known as Everest Solar Systems, which is based in Oceanside, California. K2 noted that its expansion stems from its confidence that the commercial and residential solar markets will grow and, therefore, require its racking technology.

Bechtel Power has chosen Unirac to provide a PV system for the 110MW AC Catalina PV project in Kern County, California, the company has announced. The company will supply the Catalina PV park with a ground mounted system, installed on a 1,100 acre site. Unirac manufactured the system specifically for the project, which is expected to be completed in 2013.

Electrical connector company Multi-Contact has revealed that its TÜV- and UL-certified MC4 and MC4PLUS photovoltaic connectors have been granted certification for protection class IP68. The IP certification series vouches for the products’ ability to withstand contact and infiltration of water and dirt. This new accolade means that an entire PV installation can be cabled consistently with a single system.

IBC Solar has signed an agreement with South Korean chemical company LG Chem that will see the development of advanced lithium-ion storage solutions for solar energy. As a result of this collaboration, IBC has added to its power storage systems range with the new IBC SolStore 6.3 Li battery.

At Intersolar Europe, PV-Kraftwerker will be showcasing “Momo”, its assembly robot that can build open area solar parks. The robot is able to mount PV modules onto support racks through a gripper system, sensors and a 3-D camera, which also catches any aberration from the standard and corrects and adjusts deviations. The robot has no trouble covering large distances and the modules rarely suffer breakages on any sort of terrain, as PV-Kraftwerker’s Eberhard Schulz mentioned.