New SMA Inverters - Secure Power Supply

Re: New SMA Inverters - Secure Power Supply

Hello everyone, Greg Smith from SMA here to weigh in on this ground breaking inverter that was a big hit at Intersolar. Our booth was flooded with people who had the same questions I am reading in this thread. Our installation manual can be found on our website for this product and it has a lot of good information in it. Considering an inverter would normally provide 0W when the grid goes out, I think having up to 1500W when the sun is up and without the need for storage is pretty darn secure!

I want to stress to everyone that the SPS is opportunity power. You can get up to 1500W at 120VAC when the sun is shining to power loads. There is no surge capacity and if you pull more than the SPS can provide the SPS will shut down and your loads will not be powered. Twenty seconds later the SPS will try to reengage the outlet and if the demand is below or equal to what the SPS can provide then it will reconnect. It will continue to try to reconnect every 20 seconds until the sun goes down.

- I do not know where the 2-3 hour operational limitation came from but as DanS26 pointed out, as long as there is sufficient irradiation then you will get up to 12A from this socket when the sun is shining.

- The SPS does take operator interaction to activate and turn off. When the grid goes down the homeowner will flip the switch on to activate the SPS power to a dedicated receptacle. When the grid comes back then they will turn the SPS switch off to resume sending power to the AC distribution panel. This manual operation was required by UL and differs from the automatic switching that is performed by our Sunny Island that automatically creates a micro grid when the grid goes down.

- If the grid comes back during the day and the homeowner does not flip the SPS switch to the off position then the inverter will not feed to the grid. When the lights in the house come back on then the homeowner will go to the SPS and turn the switch off to resume normal PV operation.

- If the grid outage continues into the night but then returns before the sun comes up then the inverter will automatically resume sending power to the grid in the morning if it senses grid voltage on L1 and L2. If the power goes out in this condition (the SPS switch left in the ON position) then the homeowner must cycle the switch from ON to OFF and then back on to start SPS operation.

I have a solar array simulator that is used by many well-known solar testing authorities and I can adjust the weather conditions to see the effects on an inverter. I have been toying with the idea of creating a chart that would show how much available power the SPS could provide based on certain weather conditions but in the end I abandoned the idea since the homeowner cannot do anything about the weather to increase the output of the SPS anyway. The bottom line is that if you plug in a load that causes the SPS to trip then you must either reduce the load or wait for more sunshine. It is a self-correcting problem.

We have a video that talks about the SPS on our website: http://goo.gl/OHNvJy

Here is another SMA video that talks about the inverter: http://goo.gl/b7MIKJ

Re: New SMA Inverters - Secure Power Supply

bmet wrote: »

In my experience, 9 times outta 10, when the weather is severe enough to take out utility power, there is little or no direct Sun, so what is the point? B.B.'s point is a lot more valid and would be more valuable.

Many would disagree with you, bnet, especially the people we talked to at the recent CUNY event in New York City. After Sandy, there were parts of the NE left without power for weeks but plenty of sunlight in the wake of the storm. People with generators were soon scrambling to find fuel once the gas stations closed. A lot of the solar was still intact but because the grid was down the opportunity was wasted. There are some serious discussion about delving into existing rules and regulations to see what can be done.

It appears that the biggest marketing challenge for SMA is to get people to understand that this new inverter is not a Sunny Island. It is opportunity power and has already proven itself in Japan where it was launched after Fukoshima. In fact, some type of SPS functionality from a PV inverter is now a grid requirement in Japan.

Low light levels during and after a storm will still produce more than enough to keep a cell phone charged (25W) along with some other emergency equipment.