It is now the second quarter of 2016, which means that Pika Energy Inc. will begin shipping its new Pika Energy Island systems.
“The availability of our newest bi-directional inverter comes at a critical time in the solar PV and distributed energy industry,” said Pika Energy President Ben Polito. “Solar-plus-storage is poised for significant growth, and the Pika Energy Island is the simple, cost-effective, highly efficient, and feature-rich solution the market demands.”
Here are some details on the Maine-based company’s solution.
Using the 7.6-kW bi-directional Pika Islanding Inverter and Pika PV Link DC optimizers, the Pika Energy Island powers critical loads with no grid available, providing a flexible, simple option for providing residential and commercial customers with a solar-plus-storage system. The Pika Islanding Inverter has a set of easy-to-use operational modes to enable applications like clean backup power and self consumption, so each customer’s system can be quickly optimized for various applications. The Pika Islanding Inverter integrates with high voltage lithium ion batteries and conventional 48V batteries, and can dynamically generate either 240VAC single-phase or 208-V three-phase power.
Unlike other storage-enabled solutions, the Pika Energy Island does not require a separate autotransformer to achieve 120/240V islanding, and does not require a separate storage interface for integrating high-voltage battery storage. Pika PV Link DC optimizers provide maximum powerpoint tracking at the sub-array level, offering a simpler, faster-installing alternative to module-level power electronics. Pika PV Link is Rapid Shutdown compliant and provides arc fault and ground fault protection.
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The Pika Energy Island is powered by REbus, Pika Energy’s patented 380VDC power electronics platform that sends power transmission, control and embedded performance monitoring data all on the same wire. Using a set of voltage curves, REbus signals every pre-programmed Pika Energy Island device with information about when to draw power from the bus, store power, or push power to the bus. The result is a virtually plug-and-play configuration for distributed energy systems that uses fewer installed parts than other currently available systems.
“We’re excited to offer solar PV installers a simple, flexible solution for solar-plus-storage,” said Pika Energy Chief Technology Officer Joshua Kaufman. “With its embedded intelligence and power control, REbus presents the Energy Island with many inherent advantages over other solar-plus-storage configurations.”
Pika Energy works with a network of installer partners to offer its solutions to residential and commercial end-users. The Pika Energy Island will immediately provide Pika Energy’s partners with an optimal inverter solution for all solar-plus-storage applications, including backup power, energy arbitrage, self-consumption and more.
— Solar Builder magazine
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