OKI Electric Industry and OKI Power Tech (OPT), an OKI Group company developing and manufacturing power supply units, announced that OPT, together with JFE Electrical & Control Systems, has developed a photovoltaic (PV) power conditioner. The power conditioner (described as an industry first) applies a DSP (digital signal processing) controller to an insulated dc-dc converter, which offers high efficient power generation even in insulated applications where power conversion efficiency has been an issue. The power conditioner will be available from October 2009.
"We are excited to enter the PV market with our power conditioners, leveraging our advanced DSP control technology. We will first offer a 10kW output product to Japan’s industrial market and will sequentially expand our product lineup to include models with higher capacity," said Akira Ugawa, President of OKI Power Tech. "From October 2009, we plan to offer the product to companies offering systems for use in industrial and commercial applications. In addition, working together with solar battery manufacturers and trading companies, we aim to further expand our business by providing the products to overseas markets."
This newly developed 10kW PV power conditioner system is a compact high-frequency insulated power conditioner to be used outdoors with a focus on heat dissipation and maintainability. Using OPT’s DSP control technology, the power conditioner is said to offer energy-saving by maintaining high efficiency over a wide range of input power. The power conditioner adopts the "multi-phase control method," in which a number of dc-dc converters are controlled through a DSP control for best operation and conversion rates, enabling the power conditioner to flexibly control the input/output power voltage and current. Thus, according to the company, compared to conventional dc-dc converter control, it can maintain high power conversion efficiency even when electricity production from solar batteries is low and can maintain a conversion efficiency of over 90% at only 50% output. The power conditioner enables not only parallel operation with multiple units, but also includes a network connection function, in which OKI excels. In addition, it can easily increase output capacity that was difficult with previous power conditioners, and can enable monitoring functions.
