Six Common Questions About Power Supplies - Solved!
In this Allied Expert Advice article, Altech Corporation's Automation Product Manager, Laszlo Gyorgypal, answers six common questions about power supplies to help you select the best solution for your industrial automation application.
A Deep Dive Into Improving The ROI For Commercial PV Solar Systems
As with any investment, the two main ways to improve the ROI of a commercial PV system is to increase energy production (and therefore annual revenue) and decrease lifetime costs. Let's take a deeper look at how this can be done in commercial PV installations.
How Keeping It Simple Can Lower O&M Costs
To mitigate the increasing cost of running a utility-scale solar project, many owners and operators have switched their focus from CapEx to operations and maintenance (O&M).
Making Solar an Even Safer Investment
As more businesses, utilities, and state bodies look to solar energy to help them meet their carbon reduction goals and cut energy costs, safety is coming under ever more scrutiny.
Avoid Cross-mating of PV Connectors
Not only the selection of quality components but also their correct handling is crucial for the PV plant's profitability and safety. Therefore, it is essential to know and understand the technical impacts when installing and connecting the various elements.
The First PV Connectors for Harsh Environmental Conditions
Requirements for operating electrical installations in ambient temperatures over 70°C or at altitudes higher than 6,500 feet differ from the requirements for standard installations due to the different climate conditions.
Correct Use of Aluminum Core Cables in PV Systems
In PV systems, it is recommended to use copper core AC cables. If you need to use aluminum wires, pay attention to the transition method when connecting aluminum cables to copper wires or equipment with copper terminals.
The Top 10 Most Common Myths about Traditional DC Power Optimizers: Part 1
In this series, we'll debunk common misconceptions and shed some light on how performance is impacted by MLPE technologies.
How Silicon Carbide is Changing Solar Power Systems
Silicon carbide enables solar inverters to be lighter, smaller and more efficient. Using silicon carbide power components instead of silicon for solar inverters can save 10 megawatts for each gigawatt and 500 watts/sec in operations, representing significant energy savings.
Wire Management: Materials, New Module Geometries and the NEC
The trends with the biggest impact that we are seeing all revolve around the design of module frames. There are a number of module manufacturers who have reduced the length of the flange found on the underside of a typical module frame.
Understanding Solar PV Wire Management
Installers that take their wire management seriously will have longer lasting systems that require less maintenance over the lifetime of the PV system (20 to 30+ years).
Talking SPI 2018 with Mudge Fasteners
DURA-CON® Fasteners show resistance to Environmental Corrosion equal to that of stainless steel fasteners when tested in aluminum solar panel racking. Visit us at Booth #2283 for more information.
Talking with REC Solar about Preventing Solar System Fires
Faulty connections during installation can lead to hot spots, and eventually to fires, faulty equipment either due to defects during the manufacturing process or due to damage or lack of maintenance, general degradation.
Talking SPI 2018 with HellermanTyton
This year, HellermannTyton is doubling down in our focus on wire management with single axis trackers. Visit us at Booth #2850
Battling corrosion to keep solar panels humming
Sue Holmes for Phys.org: People think of corrosion as rust on cars or oxidation that blackens silver, but it also harms critical electronics and connections in solar panels, lowering the amount of electricity produced.
"It's challenging to predict and even more challenging to design ways to reduce it because it's highly dependent on material and environmental conditions," said Eric Schindelholz, a Sandia National Laboratories materials reliability researcher who studies corrosion and how it affects photovoltaic (PV) system performance.
Sandia researchers from different departments collaborate to accelerate corrosion under controlled conditions and use what they learn to help industry develop longer-lasting PV panels and increase reliability. For example, work by Olga Lavrova of Sandia's Photovoltaic and Distributed Systems Integration department demonstrated, for the first time, a link between corrosion and the risk of arc faults in PV systems' electrical connections. Research by Erik Spoerke of Sandia's Electronic, Optical and Nano Materials department focuses on developing new nanocomposite films that could dramatically increase reliability. Cont'd...
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