10 PV Picks for 2010 – Pick #4

Little Box, Big Boost – National Semiconductor
by Terri Steele

When the engineers at global chip giant National Semiconductor were determining the most logical, viable product to address the inconsistencies of power production with today’s solar modules, National’s Renewable Energy Business Director Ralf Muenster says they considered making micro-inverters, but chose to go another route because they felt that micro-inverters “Distributed the least reliable part of a solar system throughout the entire array, multiplying the system failure points by the number of panels in the system.” They concluded a better method was to distribute solely the inverter’s optimization function throughout the entire system and keep the inversion centralized and accessible.  Thus the genesis of National’s award-winning SolarMagicTM power optimizer. Solar-Magic’s power optimizers are mounted to modules to ameliorate the energy-degrading perpetrators of ‘mismatch’, which include varying string lengths, module mixing, and different module plane orientations.  They also provide MPPT to allow customers to monitor energy output and be alerted to any potential anomalies in production.  The product is designed to increase the power yield of underperforming Crystal Silicon Panel Solar PV arrays of all sizes despite shading, temperature imbalances, panel mismatch challenges or multiple panel orientations. Shading is not nearly as big a problem with amorphous-Si (Applied Materials SunFab modules), CIGS (Solyndra, Ascent Solar), CdTe (First Solar, Abound Solar) as it is with conventional mono and polycrystalline silicon cell modules.  Since its launch at InterSolar in Munich this past May, National’s Renewable Energy Business Director Ralf Muenster says SolarMagic has developed a distribution network that is selling its power optimizers via 25 distributors on four continents. With its recent acquisition of commercial monitoring and performance management provider Energy Recommerce, SolarMagic is positioning itself for penetration in all major solar markets and across residential, commercial and utility-scale strata.  Some believe that the market may choose microinverters as an investment priority over SolarMagic. Microinverter companies insist centralized inverter implementations create a single point of failure for solar power systems that spells risky business. If the inverter fails, the entire system is disabled. But the folks at National have a high degree of confidence in their systems and the opposing point of view. Muenster says his teams are engaging central inverter manufacturers as partners, and are working with a number of inverter companies on optimized inverter solutions that further enhance PV system performance in conjunction with Solar-Magic devices. The question is who has the higher degree of success regarding failure rates. The magic isn’t lost in National’s relationship with central inverter firms, but until there are formal announcements made about solid partnership agreements, the honeymoon has yet to begin. For installers and integrators looking to optimize energy output for customers, that marriage can’t happen soon enough.  Partnerships with central inverter companies may not be the only liaison we hear of involving SolarMagic in 2010. This year, plan on reading about National’s Semiconductor’s collaborative effort with leading panel manufacturers to develop smart panels with integrated SolarMagic power optimization technology.

Info: www.solarmagic.com

Terri Steele is a correspondent for InterPV Magazine based in San Diego, California, the U.S.A. You can find her at InterPV@cox.net and at www.Twitter.com/SolarSavvy

Jeffrey Owens contributed to this article. Founder and Executive Director of Missouri-based Show Me Solar, he may be reached by email at jowens@showmesolar.org