New Industry Products

PV Powered Announces Turnkey DC-to-Medium Voltage Platform For MW-Scale Solar Projects

October 25, 2009 by Jeff Shepard

PV Powered, Inc. announced its PowerVault™, a turn-key and fully customizable dc-to-medium voltage platform that is said to provide significant cost savings in multi-megawatt solar installations. PowerVault is a fully-engineered and factory assembled inverter power plant with dc inputs on one side and medium voltage outputs on the other. The inverters, switchboard and monitoring system are housed in an enclosure that is listed to UL QRNZ for walk-in electrical equipment. The medium voltage transformer with an integrated loop feed switch is mounted on the outdoor portion of the skid.

The conduit-ready pier-mount configuration saves installation time and eliminates tens-of-thousands of dollars in engineering design, site preparation and installation costs for commercial and utility customers.

The PowerVault platform offers a variety of configurations designed around the 97% efficient PVP260kW inverter. With the benefit of a 20-year operating life and the highest inverter reliability in the industry, this MW-scale power plant offers the reliability and redundancy needed to ensure uptime in large solar power systems.

As with PV Powered’s standalone 260kW commercial inverters, the PowerVault has a standard 295Vdc minimum MPPT and an optional full-power 265VDC minimum MPPT- the lowest MPPT voltage of any commercial inverter in the industry. This makes the PowerVault well suited for use in the North American market and for getting the most power out of the new lower-cost thin-film solar arrays.

"The PowerVault provides a new level of efficiency and reliability for utility-scale solar power applications," said Gregg Patterson, PV Powered CEO. "But what is really attractive to large solar installations are the financial benefits they can get by using a factory integrated, tested and configurable solution that eliminates significant field labor costs."