Ideal Power Inc. announced its 125kW converter family, including a 3-port hybrid converter and 2-port battery converter. The 125kW converter products are expected to lower costs and improve efficiency for integrating photovoltaic (PV) and energy storage solutions up to megawatt scale, as well as provide off-grid and grid-resilient (grid-tied battery backup) capabilities. Ideal Power also announced that it has received an initial order for its 125kW hybrid converter from CODA Energy, a California based manufacturer and installer of commercial and industrial energy storage products. Ideal Power will display its new 125kW hybrid converter at the Solar Power International Conference, booth #2658, in Las Vegas on October 20 - 23, 2014.
"The mutual benefits of deploying battery storage with PV are well known 'off-grid,'" stated Peter Nortman, COO, CODA Energy. "The argument to deploy storage with PV 'on-grid' is perhaps even more compelling to a resilient and sustainable energy future. We expect Ideal Power's 3-port hybrid architecture to help us meet our customer's needs in this important market space due to its comprehensive feature set and compact, efficient design."
Dan Brdar, Chief Executive Officer of Ideal Power, commented, "To support our customers' needs, Ideal Power has expanded its award-winning 30kW converter family with 125kW products that support larger installations. "We are excited to continue to build on our long term relationship with CODA Energy, whose innovative storage solutions make them an ideal initial customer for our 125kW hybrid converter."
Commercial grid tied and off grid microgrid systems, which range in power from roughly 30kW to 1MW, are two of the fastest growing markets for integrated energy storage and photovoltaic generation. Ideal Power's 30kW products are rapidly gaining market acceptance as innovative, technology-leading solutions for integrating energy storage in commercial and microgrid installations up to about 200kW of capacity. The Company's new modular 125kW products will cost-effectively support larger systems up to the megawatt scale.
Ideal Power's 125kW hybrid and battery converter products leverage the Company's patented Power Packet Switching Architecture (PPSA), which eliminates the need for an isolation transformer, thus improving efficiency, weight, size and cost. The 125kW hybrid converter supports integration of energy storage with PV, wind or combustion generators and weighs about 400 pounds. The 125kW battery converter supports bidirectional battery conversion and weighs approximately 325 pounds. Both products are expected to have 96.5% CEC-weighted efficiency.
