1 GW PV array, the world’s largest, comes on line

China has been the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels since 2008 and has over 400 PV companies. It is now the largest market for both photovoltaics and solar thermal energy. In 2013, it was the world’s leading installer of solar photovoltaics, and by mid-2015 had reached a total installed capacity of 35.78 GW, making it the largest producer of PV power. In 2015, China installed over 18 GW, reaching a total of 43 GW.

In 2014 Huawei Technologies Co., China’s largest mobile phone manufacturer, officially entered the solar business when it adapted its telecommunications technology to solar inverters. It shipped about 1GW of products during the first half of 2014, launching the smart PV power business by adding smart features such as digital data collection and analysis to its inverters, and in November 2014 unveiled its smart PV solution in Germany with a demonstration of its string inverter solution at the 7.8 MW Lansweiler- Reden PV plant in western Germany.

The plant, owned and operated by the Greencells Group, was connected to the grid in May 2015.

The plant has been built using Huawei’s SUN2000 string inverters rather than the more conventional central inverter. The use of 300 string inverters across the site affords the site owner greater control and monitoring of the plant, reputedly generating a 5% higher yield and a 50% better maintenance efficiency for the same cost as a central inverter.

With 60 inverters for each 1.56 MW substation of the plant, the string inverters each connect to five arrays, each of 20 modules. The connection to the transformer requires no DC cables, which further lowers costs, and weighing 48 kg each they can be easily installed and replaced when needed. A major advantage lies in the data connection, which is wireless and connected to Huawei’s monitoring network.

1 GW array

The same solution but on a much larger scale has now been applied at the gigantic Yanchi, Ningxia, solar park, which came on line in September this year and is at 1000 MW the largest contiguous array in the world. Originally planned as a 2 GW array, the park currently contains 1 GW of solar panels controlled by SUN2000-40KTL and SUN2000-50KTL smart PV controllers with internal connection via a smart PV wireless transmission system.

This kind of smart control reduces the impact of blocking and PV string mismatch and is increasing the average energy yield by more than 3%, reports Huawei.

Central management is via FusionSolar’s ‘Smart O&M’ cloud centre’ which operates centrally to handle all plants for the group. Smart O&M taps into potential benefits through cloud computing and big data analysis, to maximise profits over the 25- year life span.

Cabling is in effect replaced by computing power. The smart PV wireless transmission system replaces the fibre ring network thereby avoiding the problems caused by communication cable faults, which are difficult to locate after long-term operation.

Huawei’s solution derives from and incorporates its expertise in digital information technology, internet technology, and PV technology, which has been accumulated for over 20 years. Its solution has now been widely applied around the world. Reference plants include a 220 MW ground-mounted smart PV plant in Golmud, China, a 20 MW PV plant in Trowbridge, UK, a 30 MW mountain located Smart PV array in Panzhihua, China, and a 108 MW solar- fishery Smart PV Plant in Yangzhou, China.

Customer benefits

As well as the claimed higher yields and greater system efficiency, the Huawei solution is said to offer a more reliable system that is proof against prolonged exposure to dust, water and salt mist. It has IP65 protection, and no easily damaged parts such as fuses andr fans, and is 25-year maintenance-free in terms of the system components. Automatic global O&M confers the ability to learn the operating status and the revenue of each power plant. For power plants at various locations, field engineers can use the smart PV terminal to interact real-time with the central O&M expert team, verbally or by video link.