Solectria Renewables LLC is a US based solar inverter company that was founded in 2005 in Massachusetts by a group of MIT engineers.The company has expanded quickly to 1 GW of grid tied pv inverter capacity in USA alone and is looking to set up smaller solar inverter factories in China and India which are looking to be the next high growth solar markets.Solectria Renewables specializes in large sized grid tie solar inverters ranging from 1.8 kilowatts to 500 kilowatt sizes.The company sells its solar inverter solutions to residential,commercial as well as utility customers.The company also sells a String Sizing Tool and SolRen monitoring software.The company received a grant to develop Smart Grid capable solar inverter from DOE.Note Solar Inverter Manufacturers are currently facing increased competition from Chinese low cost players as well as new companies.Satcon,AEIS and Power-One which are the biggest US Solar Inverter companies have already seen their revenue and profit growth go down due to decreased demand growth and falling prices.However there is greater differentiation and technology barriers in high end solar inverters than in solar panels in which Chinese are dominating currently.Solectria is differentiating itself by its decently priced solar inverters which are high efficiency pv inverters as well
Solectria Inverters Review
Solectria Commercial and utility-scale PV inverters are manufactured in the USA, ARRA compliant and Ontario FIT Content Compliant
Solectria Residential Solar Inverters (PVI 3000,PVI5000)
Solectria sells PVI3000,PVI4000,PVI5300,PVI5000,PVI6500 and PVI 7500 solar inverter in this range.Note these solar inverters cannot be used for smaller solar panels installations as the minimum size is 1800 watts..These string series inverters have 96% efficiency and the company claims that it is the most efficient transformer isolated string inverter on the market.The features of these solar inverters are Fully-integrated design ,Detachable wiring box , Standard 10 year warranty with RS232/RS485 communications
The PVI 1800 and PVI 2500 are the smallest single phase inverters in the industry and tested in the harshest weather conditions. The integrated panel assembly option allows for this inverter series to be mounted on an industrial grade aluminum panel, with disconnects and a revenue grade meter.The have solar inverter efficienes of 93% CEC and 94.5% peak.
Solectria Commercial Solar Inverters (PVI 3000,PVI5000)
Solectria sells 10-95 kilowatts inverters in this segment.Solectria Renewables’ PVI 10KW, PVI 13KW, and PVI 15KW inverters are the smallest true three-phase PV Inverter series in the industry. This series of commercial grade inverters is available in 208 VAC, 240 VAC, 480 VAC, and 600 VAC versions and comes standard with integrated AC and DC disconnects
Solectria 60kW, 82kW and 95kW Grid-Tied PV Inverters comes standard with AC and DC disconnects, isolation transformer, LCD display and monitoring gateway
Solectria Utility Solar Inverters
These are the largest solar inverters and meant for utility scale systems . Solectria Renewables’ SMARTGRID (SGI) 225-500 series of inverters has a 97.5% CEC weighted efficiency with the transformer providing galvanic isolation between the PV array and the grid.The SMARTGRID series features five power classes, 225 kW, 250 kW, 266 kW, 300 kW and 500 kW
Solectria Renewables String Sizing
Solectria Renewables offers a great string sizing software at its website where a number of parameters can be inputted to give the required string sizing.There are a huge number of solar panel manufactures and models featured which can be input into the software alongwith the electrical service connections ,temperature etc.Solectria also sells Solectria Renewables’ fused PV string combiners which offers 4 to 30 fuse positions and fuse values ranging from 6A to 20A.The string combiner series offers an optional DC disconnect and rail mounted surge arrestors.
Solectria Monitoring Software
Solectria Renewables monitoring software is known as SolrenView™ w and can be used with any residential, commercial or SMARTGRID Inverters.SolrenView gateway hardware provides data via Ethernet (standard) or cellular modem.The software is sold in packages and detailed real time information on the performance of the solar systems can be viewed.The additional features are also available such as seeing weather information and also granular sub zone currents.
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