10% Increased PV Production by Replacing the Inverter

OMRON Press Release May, 19th,2016

10% increased PV production by replacing the inverter

Omron transformerless inverter, thanks to ZCC embedded technology, can replace inverter with transformer in PV plants with thin film modules

According to latest IEA (International Agency Report) Report, Snapshot of Global PV Markets 2016, Italy, where PV production cover 8% of electricity needs, is the country with the highest solar contribution to electricity demand in Europe, followed by Greece (7,4%) and Germany (7,1%). This is enough to confirm that revamping is a strategical issue for PV Inverter producers, like Omron, which are still on the market and should give assistance to those plants where the inverter manufacturers failed. Main strengths of the transformerless Inverter KP100L is that, thanks to ZCC embedded technology, it can replace inverters with transformer in plants with thin film modules, where grounding of negative pole is mandatory.

Quite interesting what happened in Italy: Filippo Agriman, technical and sales manager in Solarit, an italian company active in the PV sector since 2001, found a very interesting solution to replace a centralized inverter with transformer and grounded negative pole in a 70 kW plant with thin modules. The plant was connected to the Grid in 2011, and, by now, both the inverter manufacturer and the in film modules manufacturer cannot give any support.

“Thin film modules may have higher parasitic capacitance than mono and polo crystalline modules. This fact induces high leakage currents and the inverter, for security reason, switches on the isolation control and stops energy output until the situation is back to standard conditions”, says Eleonora Denna, Product Marketing Manager in Omron. “To unsure the compliance of our Inverter with thin films we usually run tests with the modules’ manufacturer, to be sure that parasitic capacitance are low enough not to start this phenomenon. Unfortunately, in this case the thin film module manufacturer cannot give any support, then it was not possible to run tests and issue the declaration of compliance.

“Our customer was in a very bad situation: the inverter could not be conveniently repaired, so the only chance was to replace the inverter”, says Filippo Agriman, “The requirements were grounding the negative pole and not to change the plant architecture: 26 strings, 10 modules each.

Per ulteriori informazioni: Updating - ufficio stampa OMRON Olga Calenti – [email protected] Cell. +39 348 9854037 Erminia Corsi – [email protected] - Cell. +39 348 9854041 OMRON Press Release May, 19th,2016

Our choice was the Omron Inverter: it is a transformerless inverter, but the ZCC technology grants grounding the negative pole without any other add-on. As it was not possible to have the compliance declaration, we decided to run tests on field which gave excellent results, after 30 days the production of the plant session with three string inverters is 10% better than the plant session with the old centralized inverter”.

“It was an interesting experience, says Eleonora Denna, Product Marketing Manager in Omron, showing with a real case that the KP100L, without any transformer, can replace successfully the inverter in plants requiring the negative pole grounded, as it happen with thin film modules. The KP100L has 3 MPPT easily configurable and wide voltage range so that it can be used in many installations without any architectural change”.

Omron Corporation https://industrial.omron.eu/en/home Omron Corporation, with headquarter in Kyoto, Japan, and is worldwide market leader for automation components, with revenues of 5,4 billion euros. Founded in 1933 has more than 37.000 employees in 36 countries and supplies products and services for industrial automation, electronic and healthcare. The company has offices all over the world and is present in 22 European Countries with 1500 employees. The company is strongly committed to Research and Innovation, investing every year 7% of the revenues in R&D. Omron produces and sells photovoltaic inverter since 1994 and in twenty years sold more than one million photovoltaic Invers of KP series. Since 1995 produces and sells Power Monitoring Device.

Omron Environmental Solution Business (part of Industrial Automation Business) http://industrial.omron.eu/en/solutions/energy-efficiency Omron - Environmental Solution Business is responsible for the photovoltaic business and for Power Monitoring Devices in Europe. These activities are part of the brand “Energy Efficiency”, which include all Omron activities in Renewable Energies and in Energy Efficiency.

Solarit www.solarit.it Solarit is a leading supplier for PV designers and installers in Italy, with headquarter in San Pietro in Gù, near Padova. The company sells PV modules from top manufacturer, with high efficiency, and reliability, from 5 to 240 Wp, PV inverters, charge controllers and solar lights.

Per ulteriori informazioni: Updating - ufficio stampa OMRON Olga Calenti – [email protected] Cell. +39 348 9854037 Erminia Corsi – [email protected] - Cell. +39 348 9854041