Power-One, Inc.(Nasdaq:PWER), a leading provider of renewable energy and energy-efficient power conversion and power management solutions, has announced their newest solution for large scale PV Plants, the ULTRA-700/1100/1500-TL inverter series which is available in 780kW, 1.17MW and 1.560MW models.
Power-One has focused on maximizing the ROI for PV utility plant owners from the product concept phase of the AURORA ULTRA™, through maximizing energy harvesting, lowering the total plant investment and minizing maintenance costs. The AURORA ULTRA extends the power range of their inverters to 1.56 Megawatts and continues to provide the features AURORA customers have come to expect. With a maximum of 98.6 percent efficiency and up to four independent MPPT's, Power-One continues its leadership in energy harvesting. In addition to high energy harvesting, the solar power generation loss in the event of an inverter failure is reduced to 390kW, the power level of one inverter building blocks. The inverter's modular design allows a 390kW block to be field replaceable supporting up-time with a short mean time to repair.
The system level approach to lower initial investment of the entire plant has resulted in innovations such as the 690Vac output voltage which enables the use of high volume commonly available standard transformers and protection equipment. The higher output voltage also results in decreased cable costs offering further cost reductions. Built with a NEMA 4X cabinet, the ULTRA is able to operate in harsh environmental conditions. The AURORA ULTRA is available in pre-configured turn-key solutions including the mounting pad and MV transformer under the AURORA ULTRA STATION product line eliminating the cost of engineering.
"Power-One has looked beyond optimized inverter cost and developed inverter features to maximize energy harvest and lower BOS costs for multi MW projects", said Alex Levran, president of Power-One.
The AURORA maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm ensures that the inverter operates at the absolute maximum power point of the array. The ULTRA inverter further improves the MWH plant output due to a maximum inverter efficiency of 98.6%. In addition, the ULTRA's wide input voltage range provides maximum energy harvesting over a wide module temperature and insolation levels.
The ULTRA 700/1100/1500 inverters host some of the most sophisticated communication and grid management capabilities for utility monitoring and interconnection requirements. These features can be configured based on specific customer requirements. The ULTRA inverter series is a true utility scale product in every sense. The inverter monitoring further incorporates a Power-One intelligent string combiner option to provide array level monitoring.