Solar Future Strategy Conference Let’s talk about PV-inverters 8. June 2010
Christoph von Bergen, CEO, Sputnik Engineering AG
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Agenda
About Sputnik Engineering AG
Technology Trends ■ Efficiency ■ Quality ■ Lessons from other sectors
Market ■ Applications
■ For special conditions ■ Standard residential plant ■ Industrial roof and land projects
■ Grid parity needs more grid management ■ Price ■ Inverter shortage
Conclusion
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About Sputnik Engineering AG
Founded 1991
Based in Biel / Bienne, Switzerland (Head Office)
Subsidiaries in Germany
Spain
Italy
France
Sales Offices Czech Republic, Belgium
Employees 330
and more than 400 outsourced jobs in exclusive partner companies
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Sputnik Engineering
Annual Installed Capacity in Megawatts MWac
Annual increase in MWac Expected annual increase in MWac
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Products
Product Portfolio
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Products
Product Portfolio
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Technology Trends
New technologies have to improve continuously the 3 key aspects:
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Technology Trends
Revolution or Evolution? Currently we can not see revolutionary trends (technology jumps) Evolution and continuous improvement is in the focus
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Technology Trends
In the context of inverters everybody is talking about efficiency?
Is efficiency strategically the key driver? In the future, the efficiency values of different
manufacturers will assimilate High efficiency is important, but will become
mandatory The differentiation potential is decreasing
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Technology Trends: Efficiency
SolarMax S, 1994: Sputnik introduced the
first TL-inverter into the market
SolarMax E-Series, efficiency jump
SolarMax MT Series, 3-Level, SiC diodes
SolarMax showing up with state of the art inverters
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Technology Trends: Quality
All efforts and investments in product quality will increase the reliability. In general the inverter reliability has the biggest impact to the performance ratio of the entire PV-installation. Why? An inverter is built with more than thousand components The integrated microcontrollers (DSP) contain several
hundred pages of source code. Rough electrical conditions at the AC-side
(bursts, spikes, etc.) A breakdown by the PV-inverter mainly causes a total
breakdown for the entire PV-installation
SolarMax 6000S (String inverter: 4600 Wac) contains 1227 components.
SolarMax 100 TS (Central inverter: 100 kWac) contains 3199 components.
The importance of the product quality for PV-inverters is underestimated so far.
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Technology Trends: Quality
Reliable evaluation of product quality needs operation experience with an adequate installed base of test units during a significant period of time.
This is not easy to achieve, therefore only a few reports related to this topic were published yet.
Is Mean-Time-Between-Failure (MTBF) a good benchmark to evaluate reliability/ quality?
//
Normal life “Infant mortality”
End of life
Wear-out
First month First year 15 years 16 years Operating time
MTBF calculations are only valid for the constant „normal life“-phase In this phase MTBF values up to several 100 years are possible
What does MTBF have to do with lifetime?
Nothing at all!
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Technology Trends: Quality
We strongly believe that product quality will be strategically important for the future success of our company. For that reason we will invest even more in the relevant business processes:
R&D (reliable designs, extensive field tests)
Purchasing (Supplier evaluation & controlling)
Production (Testing & quality checks)
After-Sales (Fast reaction time on-site or via helpdesk)
Quality management (up to date reports about all inverter- failures to manage a continuous improvement)
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Technology Trends
Lessons from other sectors Higher voltages
1500 VDC
690 VAC
Optimizing overall system performance
Smart grids and power management
Source: Cleanfuture™ and Portlant State University
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Market trend
Applications
Non-homogeneous applications / critical conditions DC-DC converter or micro inverter
(Revival from the 90’s) Advantages due to multiple trackers (e.g. BiPV) More components: higher costs and lower quality Working under rough ambient conditions
(coldness/heat, humidity) Extensive to monitor and to exchange (BiPV) Quality and economics will decide on the success
From 1995 to 1997 Our 160 Wac Micro-Inverter mounted at the back side of a 200Wp PV-module. We run field tests with 500 pieces.
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Market trend
Applications
Small plants and standard residential applications String inverters
Good price performance ratio Inverter location can be selected in a for
electronics reasonable environment and customer accessibility
Likely mainstream solution for the next years
Top of Europe (Jungfraujoch)
Highest PV installation in the world, 3,500 m. above sea level. Start-up 01/2008
Devices: 4xSM3000S
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Market trend
Applications
Industrial roof / land projects Central inverters
Optimized for higher voltages Best price performance ratio Reduced quantity of components as a
basis for less break-downs All-In-Solutions are available - ready
to connect with MV-grid
Largest PV installation in France
La Réunion, 4.4 megawatts. Start-up 2006/2007
Devices: 1xSM300C, 7xSM100C, 1xSM80C, 2xSM35C, 2xSM30C, 2xSM25C, 1xSM20C
Standards for PV inverters
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Main Categories
Product safety
EN 50178 (Europe)
UL 1741 (North America)
EMC
IEC/EN „61000 series“
Grid connection & protection
VDE 0126-1-1 (Parts of Europe)
BDEW MV-Guideline (Germany)
RD1663 (Spain)
DK5940 (Italy)
G83/1 (UK)
IEEE 1547 (North America)
And many more…
Standards for PV inverters
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Each country and/or region has its own standards for PV-inverters ...
Grid parity needs more grid management
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With the large amounts of unpredictable renewable energies the grid operators have new challenges for the grid management. They easiest access for monitoring and control of the whole installation is through the PV-inverter. The utilities must have the possibility to control the PV-installation. Power reduction Reactive power Fault ride through (FRT)
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Cost Reduction
What brings the cost down:
Economies of scale Higher purchasing volumes New production processes Internationalization of inverters to increase market
volume Smart design/ topology Integration of discrete elements Less components
New components SiC Diodes, DSP, etc
Higher efficiencies reducing cost for cooling and housing
Harmonisation of standards Clean the standard-jungle to a reasonable size
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Price development
Average price development of string inverters
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Shortage
Our Capacity Utilization
Component Shortage
PV-Market Recovery
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Shortage
What are our bottlenecks? Capacitors and inductors Delivery time: up to 50 weeks
Power semiconductors (IGBT, MOSFet) Delivery time: up to 20 weeks
Semiconductors (DSP) Delivery time: up to 18 – 26 weeks
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Shortage
The electronic component shortage is worldwide existent and it is a reaction of the recovering global electronics market.
Worldwide turnover ($ bn) 2008 delta 2009 delta 2010 Electronic components 398 -16% 332 +7% 356 PV-inverter sales 2.5 +20% 3 +27% 3.8 PV-inverter demand share 0.3% 0.45% 0.53%
PV-inverters have still an insignificant effect and influence on the global electronics market.
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Conclusion
Our strategic approaches:
Flexibility Close to the customer, feel market needs Short time to market for new products Flexible production following the market changes
High quality in products and processes Excellent After-Sales services
Cost awareness Keep costs down Lean management
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Sputnik Engineering
We make a considerable contribution to the development of photovoltaics, combining customer benefit and environmental protection. With the SolarMax brand, we are one of the leading manufacturers of high-quality photovoltaic inverters. We are among the TOP 3 manufacturers worldwide.
Our customers choose our products, because they trust our many years of experience and our Swiss quality and because we are leaders in the field of after-sales. In all their dealings with us, customers feel our open and customer-oriented business culture. We place great value on long-term and trusting cooperation with our partners.
We are and will remain a financially independent company.
Vision
The End – thank you very much for your attention.