Downstream project developers and suppliers proved to be the winners in the Intersolar AWARD 2014 ceremony at Intersolar Europe.
SMA Solar, a perennial winner or nominee was chosen for its ‘Fuel Save Controller,’ which combines diesel generators and PV installations to reduce diesel consumption in hybrid systems, which is growing in interest due to emerging markets and sectors such as mining industries often dependent on diesel generators.
“The SMA Fuel Save Controller bridges the gap between the two worlds of fossil and renewable energy and opens up new business areas to solar companies,” noted the jury of experts.
A MPPT charge controller from Steca Elektronik was also a winner with its charge controller that supports different types of storage systems, including lithium-ion, lead, nickel-cadmium and nickel-metal hydride batteries which extends battery life.
A central PV inverter from Japanese firm, TMEIC was chosen because of its innovative cooling system that uses water cooling with heat pipes, which eliminates the need for pumps and only requires a low amount of air. In the case of ventilator failure, the inverter was said to guarantee to work at an efficiency rate of up to 50%.
Winners in the ‘Solar Projects in Europe’ category included IBC Solar for its approach to finance ground-mounted installations despite feed-in tariffs reductions in Germany. Two locally based companies became investors and use the generated solar power at the low cost of less than 10 euro cents per kilowatt hour at a 6.4MWp plant located on the outskirts of Kaiserslautern, Germany, on a former municipal waste landfill right next to an industrial area.
GOLDBECK Solar was noted for its heat and supply system in a School & Sports facility in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, combining power and heat in a decentralized heat/power-generation system.