Omron South Africa has recently completed its first photovoltaic installation using a 10 kW grid-tied 400 V inverter. The solar PV panel is roof mounted on a light weight aluminium structure designed to eliminate corrosion. DC power is fed into the panel mounted inverter, DC supply range is 225 to 850 V, with a nominal input voltage of 585 V. The AC power output is connected to the user’s 400 V 3-phase supply. The system has Modbus communication on board allowing the values of voltage, current and power to be monitored and logged.
With Eskom requiring a 10% energy saving across the board, this is a simple method that can be used to reduce consumption while still being able to supply sufficient power to the facility. One advantage of grid-tied inverters is that no alterations to the current electrical infrastructure are required, which means that there is no power downtime during installation. The inverter has a maximum efficiency of 97,5% and only consumes 1,5 W during dark times. This creates an ROI of just 5 years at the current prices of PV panels.
The trend across Europe, where the majority of Omron’s PV inverters are installed, is that utilities buy back excess power that is generated by grid-tied inverters, thus using the grid as a storage system, which shortens the ROI even further.
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