Currently, solar power generation faces significant growth due to global awareness and favorable government policies. At the same time the PPA price for solar continues to decrease, which is already lower than traditional power generation in some countries. One example is a 500MW solar plant in Qinghai province, China. Therefore, solar plant investors pay more attention to the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE).
The application of new technologies such as tracker system and bifacial module will reduce the LCOE. But a question remains: How to match the new technologies and deep integration with the solar plant? Due to lack of flat land, solar plant are now installed over complex environmental conditions like hilly areas, coastal areas and desert regions.
In this context, Sungrow introduces the world’s most powerful 1500V string inverter in 2019 — SG250HX-IN, which
is a global product in compliance with both IEC and UL standards.
12 MPPTs Compatible with Bifacial Module and Tracker System, High Yield
International Solar Energy Research Center Konstanz indicates that the lowest LCOE of 1¢/kWh is expected in 2021/2022 and the leading technologies to achieve this goal will be bifacial module plus tracker system. The single axis or multi axis tracker system plus bifacial module will require higher full-load operation capacity and pose more challenges for the inverters. Sungrow’s SG250HX-IN can run at full load for a long time attributing to reliable and robust components selection with advanced design. Additionally, SG250HX-IN is embedded with 12 MPPTs to adapt complex terrain and enables 26A input current per string, perfectly matching the bifacial modules. SG250HX-IN also
provides reserved power supply and communication interface to tracker system. SG250HX-IN has 0.3~0.5% higher yield compared with its competitor through PVsyst simulation, which will bring a higher performance.
Bigger & Flexible Block, Cost Saving
As a recent study shows that the global market for large-scale PV installations is shifting to bigger block design to reduce LCOE. Based on the cost comparison of different capacity block, 6~9.6MW block enables lowest cost. Sungrow’s SG250HX-IN is suitable for any block size between 3MW to 9.6MW and higher depending on customer’s design. The SG250HX-IN typical system diagram is shown as figure 3.
The SG250HX-IN and communication device supports PLC (Power Line Communication), which decrease communication cable cost. Detailed CAPEX study indicates that SG250HX-IN will save 0.2~0.3 USD cent/Wp compared with competitor.
Adapt to Harsh Environments
In recent years, more solar plants are installed in coastal areas and desert areas which pose challenges to inverters. With smart forced air-cooling technology, the SG250HX-IN can work stably in scorching heat. On account of lower internal temperature than the temperature in natural cooling method, the lifetime of the SG250HX-IN will be longer. Due to separate electrical/cooling chamber design, SG250HX-IN provides an ingress protection rating of IP66 for all chambers and anti-corrosion design with C5 protection degree, making it ideal for applications in coastal areas, chemical industrial region and other typical harsh conditions.
Smart Monitoring Makes Fault Diagnostics Easy
Sungrow can provide a complete monitoring solution for SG250HX-IN which includes COM100 (Smart Communication Box), Insight (Local SCADA), iSolarCloud (Remote SCADA), PPC (Power Plant Controller). Sungrow’s monitoring solution supports I-V curve scanning and diagnosis which can finish a full-scale plant diagnosis in 15 minutes with an accuracy less than 0.5%. It makes easy to locate faults caused by dust shielding, glass panel cracking, dirt shielding, diode short circuit, gate line disconnect and PID attenuation in order to reduce power
generation loss.
Summary
The SG250HX-IN is the most powerful 1500V inverter in the market to date and is equipped with the latest solar technology to withstand new challenges and suitable for utility-scale solar plants. It will undoubtedly bring higher yield and lower CAPEX. IP66 protection and C5 anti-corrosion capability make it easy to adapt to harsh environments. The smart monitoring solution can accurately locate faults to ensure power generation benefits of solar plants.
