Tag: November December 2015 Print Issue

  • Inside Tabuchi’s storage plus inverter system

    You’ve likely not heard of Tabuchi, but you may have already installed one of its inverters. That’s because the Japanese electronics manufacturer has been producing inverters for a number of companies for close to 20 years — enough to be the No. 5 inverter manufacturer in the world. Anyway, ifRead More — Solar Builder magazine

  • Do you need a solar snow management system?

    In North America, over 75 percent of the roofs installed on residential construction projects are asphaltic composition shingles. If you live in an area that receives snow and ice, and your roofing material is composition shingle, you’ve probably never experienced a significant roof avalanche. The reason for this is theRead More — Solar Builder magazine

  • Power optimizers v. microinverters: What’s different about these approaches to PV architecture?

    There are three main types of inverter topologies currently used in PV systems: traditional string inverters, microinverters and power optimizers. Since the traditional string inverter topology has a number of significant drawbacks, the industry is moving forward to distributed PV system architecture. The two leading technologies for distributed PV systemRead More — Solar Builder magazine

  • Project of the Year Runner-up: Cambridge Solar

      Cambridge, Md. | 4.3 MW In 2012, the National Aquarium in Baltimore began exploring rooftop solar as a way to decrease dependence on traditional energy resources. However, given the National Aquarium’s unique building design, rooftop panels were nearly impossible. The limited roof space could only accommodate a very smallRead More — Solar Builder magazine

  • Ground-Mount Project of the Year: USVI Solar I

    St. Thomas, U.S.  Virgin Islands | 5 MW Daunting. That was the first word Sam Ley, energy systems engineer for AES Distributed Energy, used to describe USVI Solar I, our Ground-Mount Project of the Year. And really, we could have just printed that one word in bold, 72-point type nearRead More — Solar Builder magazine