Operations & Maintenance

The seasonally soft first quarter of the year for the residential solar rooftop market in the US played out again in 2017, with the addition of much heavier rainfall, notably in California. A basket of primarily US residential installers that are publically listed have recently reported first quarter results.

St. Louis, Missouri-based global energy provider Esco has acquired the renewable energy arm of NRG Systems, located in Vermont, under undisclosed terms.

This week's Movers & Shakers segment features executive shuffles in energy storage companies and an O&M firm, while examining a new merger between Spain's Gamesa and Siemens Wind Power. Spain's Renewable Energy Association elects a new president for the next four years, and Jon Wellinghoff exits SolarCity amid the US$2 billion Tesla acquisition.

Sungrow’s 1500VDC string inverter is designed to significantly reduce installation and balance of system costs for utility-scale PV systems. Sungrow was the first inverter manufacturer to introduce a 1500VDC string inverter with its SG80HV, which has a power output of 80KW. The latest inverter, SG125HV, puts 125kW of capacity in a suitcase-sized cabinet weighing just 68kg. At a higher rated voltage, the SG125HV is claimed to further reduce installation and balance of system costs.

Downer EDI has been awarded an EPC and O&M contract for a 148MW solar farm in Queensland by Palisade Investment Partners (Palisade) and ESCO Pacific (ESCO).

Ecoligo is a Berlin-based crowdfunding start-up for solar projects in Africa’s commercial and industrial (C&I) market. Even though it is a company still very much in its infancy, it is already making waves by providing competitive alternatives to traditional bank loan products and connecting German private investors to tailored off-takers.

Germany’s skytron energy has installed a system for monitoring, control and remote supervision of a 10.32MW solar farm in Japan.

Behind the scenes of Enel Green Power Mexico's ground-breaking Villanueva solar farm. Paolo Romanacci, Enel’s head of renewable energies for Central America, explains how the project was won and how it serves the local community as much as the wider energy market.

After experiencing their own problems with potential induced degradation (PID), Belgium-based Edison Energy took matters into its own hands and developed the Pidbull solution in partnership with imec. Now it sells Pidbull to anyone experiencing issues with PID. As managing director Davy Verheyden explains, it is a problem solar asset owners cannot afford to ignore.

News in Brief: ReneSola sells 6.75MW North Carolina project to Greenbacker, An Indiana Ikea is to install the largest retail rooftop solar array in the state, PowerHub releases a new version of its O&M software and five community college campuses in California are developing solar canopies.