Saft Power Systems (SPS) introduced two new family members of the Protect central solar inverters – Protect PV 33 and PV 25. With up to nine independent Maximum Power Point trackers (MPPT) inputs the modular systems are designed to deliver a nominal power output of 25kW (PV 25) and 33kW (PV 33) at a very high European conversion efficiency > 95%. According to the company, both systems boost the renewable power challenge by high efficiency, small footprint, low weight and a transformer-less design.
Six (PV 25) or 9 (PV33) independent MPPTs are said to enhance the total solar efficiency by tracking optimum solar panel points at string level. The inverter tracks the current for all nine inputs. Individual strings can be connected to these inputs, therefore, additional string boxes are not necessary to monitor each string in order to detect technical problems within a solar panel.
The modular design of the Protect PV 25 and 33 provides redundancy at inverter level raising the availability of the complete solar installation or farm. In case of a module failure the two remaining modules keep working and an alarm is automatically initiated. In this case the new solution provides a very fast Mean Time to Repair (MTTR). It can be dramatically reduced by easily replacing the defective unit by a new one – just plug & play.
Both models are equipped with a set of powerful local and remote communication capabilities. Up to 20 inverters can be operated in parallel by using a specific RS 485 card. A web page tool for administration and operation displays all relevant information of the solar inverters in a single PC window. Major information from the inverter can also be visualized on a local LCD without a PC. All data can be easily downloaded onto a USB-Stick for further analysis or set-up corrections. An integrated data logger inside the Protect solar power inverter further secures its operation. With its 3-years record capacity it collects all relevant data. Therefore the data logger serves as an independent backup system in case the external PC for administration and monitoring fails.
