Hardware brief: mobile military microgrid, $2500 EV tax credit, solar module pricing down, more!

The carport in the featured image is atop an eight story building in Springfield, Massachusetts and is part of the developer’s newly minted $250 million distributed energy fund. Source: Molly Harrison

Putting a reference to Solpad.com in here because I wrote about the soon to come Enphase hardware, and someone wrote via email that I ought show off the Solpad gear. Their hardware is made of four components: inverter, battery, and then a junction box and gateway to bring modules and strings together. Each battery offers 2.15kWh of capacity and is DC coupled to a 960W inverter. Looks like you can connect two string of 500Wac of modules. The phone app looks pretty smart per the website. Source: reader Chris Estes

Northern Reliability has been contracted to build a standardized mobile microgrid for the U.S. Navy. The group will supply two units for testing in a program that seeks to, “demonstrate a standardized microgrid configuration consisting of distributed energy resources easily adaptable to a wide variety of electrical and non-electrical siting requirements.” The hardware consists of “250kW, 4-hour lithium-ion based systems contained in transportable shipping containers. Additionally, both are fitted with Navy-approved supplemental fire protection components and incorporate an innovative lithium-ion battery cell off-gas detection device which is integrated with the fire protection/suppression system.” Source:  Northern Reliability

Massachusetts has funded an EV rebate. Anyone have insight on when the Model Y from Tesla will be available? I’ll be in the market in a couple of months… “Buyers of electric vehicles that cost less than $50,000 can receive rebates of $2,500, and plug-in hybrids that get at least 25 miles of electric-powered range are eligible for $1,500 rebates.The fund will receive at least $27 million each of the next two years, enough to help purchase 21,600 fully electric vehicles over that span” Source: Boston Globe

Product in below image isn’t available yet, but we’re told end of Q1. The sales pitch is that you can, “Build an elevated solar structure with integrated water management using only solar panels for a roof. No seals or gaskets to fail, all metal construction.” They’ve got a cool clip that ties the module to the racking, and hardware in the below image designed to channel the water away. Source” Solarrainframe.com

Module pricing keeps edging downward. Polycrystalline product’s spot pricing set itself right at 20¢/W, not moving much from prior – this time the average price has come down also. Personally, I got a proposal from someone via LinkedIn for 20.5¢/Wdc – so these numbers feel real. The authors of this report suggested module manufacturers might see this pricing softness until the Indian market picks up for the season, even with the pick up of the Chinese season happening in Q4 and into Q1. PV InfoLink also noted that higher efficiency and greater feature product (half cut and MBB were noted) were getting low price treatment.

https://twitter.com/PvInfolink/status/1211958368601952256

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