AE Solar Energy will be attending Solar Power International 2013 to showcase one of its newest inverters, the 3TL three-phase string inverter at Booth #1025. With this addition to its line of utility-scale inverters, the company offers one of the largest suites of inverter solutions on the market, offering its customers the best possible choice for their various solar project needs. In addition, field applications engineer John Foster will be presenting on advanced power controls as part of the “Integration with Utilities” speaking track on Tuesday, October 22 from 1:35-2:00 PM in Room 403.
AE 3TL, Three-Phase String Inverter
The AE 3TL is AE Solar Energy’s answer to market and customer demand for a distributed inverter that offers the same services and benefits as their central inverters: reliability, high efficiency, and customer support. The AE 3TL can be installed within a solar array, which allows for more flexibility and maximizes available space from a design perspective, making it well-suited for solar projects with unique design and space constraints—such as carports or rooftop-ground-mounts. The AE 3TL is UL-certified, with versatile data monitoring options, and a CEC-rated efficiency of 98 percent.
Key Features and Benefits of the AE 3TL
The product delivers key features to reduce the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) and increase energy harvest, including:
- Lightweight and easy-to-install—reduces shipping and labor costs, and speeds time to system commissioning
- Shortened run-lengths—reduces overall solar PV Balance of System (BoS) costs
- A modular and distributed design—Allows site owners to maximize valuable space on a solar installation. Also provides customers with increased uptime, higher system yields, and precise trouble-shooting and maintenance
The AE 3TL will be on display at the Advanced Energy booth, #1025
Speaking Session
Speaker: John Foster, field applications engineer
Session Title: Advanced Controls Case Studies in Distributed Solar (Session #2965)
Track: Integration with Utilities
Time: Tuesday, October 22, 1:35-2:00 PM
Location: Room 403
Description: As photovoltaic penetration grows, greater demands are being placed on the photovoltaic inverter. This session will show what inverters are capable of, providing case studies illustrating sites where the capabilities have been successfully used. Topics will cover advanced controls capabilities of today’s photovoltaic inverters, the reasons advanced power controls are required by utilities today and the problems they address, presenting several case studies on advanced controls, reactive power, and dynamic curtailment of inverters.
Project Spotlight: VF Outdoor Coalition, Alameda, CA
Thanks to the 856 kW project built at its headquarters in Alameda, CA, VF Outdoor, a subsidiary of VF Corporation, became the first corporate campus in the San Francisco Bay Area to begin generating all of its own electricity. The project incorporates AE 3TL inverters featuring capacity range, 480 Vac/3-phase output and a light and compact design that allows them to be directly mounted to carports to save space.
This project has become the epitome of a distributed PV approach. VF wanted to cost effectively achieve its goal of “Net Zero” energy status with a PV system. Sunlight Electric, the developer of the project, initially faced a number of challenges in accomplishing this goal. The rooftops of the four buildings would not yield the power needed to achieve Net Zero, and VF did not want to lose any parking spaces to carports or ground-mounted inverters. The soil at the site would not support typical pier or spread footings for carports, and the company was only considering carports that would complement the design aesthetic of the San Francisco Bay-front campus.
Sunlight Electric and Shamrock Renewable Energy Services, the general contractor, worked with Schletter to install twelve Park@Sol aluminum carport arrays in the parking lot. Since VF is located on a filled-in wetland with soil unable to support carports’ pier footings, Shamrock Renewable worked around this issue by drilling 30 feet into the ground and pouring concrete pedestals which served as a mount for the carport. The fragmented nature of carport arrays lends itself to distributed inverter design. The string inverters replace traditional DC combiner boxes and provide increased flexibility when laying out the array.
Ultimately, we’re proud to say that AE Solar Energy’s inverters were selected because they are “3-phase, transfomerless, 480v inverters that offer great versatility for commercial projects from 12-1,000 kW. Their light-weight and high efficiency make them the best choice for distributed inverter designs,” according to Rob Erlichman at Sunlight Electric.