Yotta Energy has an energy storage solution where the battery is situated beneath the solar module. The same racking components that hold the ballast also hold Yotta’s 500 kW/1kWh battery. The company raised $1.5 million in August of last year.
Generac, an old-school generator company, presented its battery-backup PwrCell and that’s a good indicator of the importance and market acceptance of battery-backup for the home. The unit can range from 8.6 kWh to 17.1 kWh.
A few years back, Generac data suggested that more than 15% of the roughly 100 million single family homes in the U.S. had generators. If that same 15% of installations were 15 kWh batteries, it would total about 225 GWh of energy storage. The U.S. deployed just over a total of 1 GWh of energy storage in 2019.
Darfon Solar exhibited its AC- and DC-coupled energy storage inverters. These units are battery-agnostic, and can be added either before or after you’ve installed your solar power system. The units are fast acting enough (UPS standard response speeds of <20ms) to switch a home from grid to battery before home electronics will notice. The AC-coupled unit has integrated software for peak shaving, while both units offer a suite of grid services including time-of-use management.
The Sol-Ark inverter is designed out of Parker, Texas — and for an additional $1,500 it can be EMP/solar flare hardened.
While most manufacturers shy away from giving their competition attention and putting prices out front, Sol-Ark names names and compares prices and features against most of the important players. (Click to enlarge chart.)
The unit supports solar power and energy storage, on-grid and off-grid, TOU and peak shaving – the list goes on.
The Nikola NZT electric 4-wheel vehicle hopes to deliver 150 miles of range, 0-to-60mph in 4 seconds, and a safe ride with a low center of gravity. It offers high-speed DC charging which is probably the reason it was parked at solar inverter manufacturer Power Electronics‘ booth.
Power Electronics showed off multiple types of vehicle charging hardware, as well as its standard utility-scale solar-plus-storage inverters.
The Nikola NZT is only available for pre-order at this point.
A key feature of Panasonic’s Evervolt energy stoarge system (which we covered recently) is its scalability. It can be sized anywhere from 5.7 kWh, all the way to 102 kWh. The average U.S. home uses about 30 kWh/day.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
“The Sol-Ark inverter is designed out of Parker, Texas — and for an additional $1,500 it can be EMP/solar flare hardened.”
It depends on whose “study” one uses to add EMP protection to one’s solar PV system. In an induced event the EMP would be a few nanoseconds of high charged gamma particles at right around 1Mev. This would charge up all electrical wiring in one’s home and more than likely puncture the wiring insulation creating shorting between wires, when the second pulse EMP-2 comes along the induced radio frequency would continue the collapse of the wirings ability to carry 60 HZ current again. By the time the EMP-3 pulse hits, pretty much all electronics devices will be destroyed by this surface charge. I have come across some linear combined gas discharge arrestors combined with a Metal Oxide Varistor that “might” work if each power wire in the C.B. panel was connected to one of these three wire devices. Something is better than nothing, but is it worth $1,500, who does one ‘see’ about this, if an EMP does destroy the house wiring and protect the inverter?
The Sol-Ark chart is interesting; but I would really like to see Enphase on the chart too, when their IQ system is deployed this year.