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Non-Tech : Alternative energy

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To: brokenst0nes who wrote (10248)	3/10/2011 11:19:26 AM
From: Eric	Read Replies (2) of 16955

Hi brokenstOnes That "slide" brings up an interesting point to me. About twenty years ago there were only about five inverter companies in the world. None of those companies had grid tied inverters and the products then were developed for "off the grid" markets, or for backup systems for telephone companies or other critical applications. Today of course that has changed with the massive manufacturing of PV's. PV's and inverters go hand in hand in delivering power to grids and that is the biggest potential market for them. I am frankly astounded by the size of the market now and the number of manufacturers compared to just a few years ago. Components have gotten much, much better (IGBT's, FET's, capacitors) for example and new transformerless designs have been developed that have increased efficiency and reliability substantially. Older inverter designs used electrolytic capacitors and transformers but newer, state of the art designs the last couple years don't use them anymore. That should help reliability over time reducing MTBF (mean time before failure). Protection circuitry has also helped reliability (think lightning strikes and other disturbances) when connected to the grid. Those problems had no really good solutions until just a few years ago. Inverters today are much more reliable and efficient than what was available only a few years ago. When I look at the inverter landscape no one winner really sticks out anymore. The only way to tell from an engineering perspective is to look inside the box and figure out what they did. IP and patents can tell a story but this stuff is not rocket science per say. Some people think companies like GE can downscale the inverters in their wind turbines and give them a market edge. From an engineering perspective that has no legs in my opinion. The "total package" is what counts. Robust design, various fail safe modes, ect. Frankly I'm very impressed with what is now available in the market today. Economies of scale do matter but good engineering is paramount to having good reliability and efficiency. Scale however will drop costs over time. I like what SMA is doing along with a few other companies but IMHO no company has the real high ground here. It's just too close to call here.

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