Inverters

Australian energy storage company Redback Technologies has unveiled an expanded product range, adding a series of grid-tied solar inverters and new beefed-up battery products to its existing line of modular battery energy storage systems for residential and commercial customers.

The inverter and battery manufacturer said it has been sitting on a record order backlog for the current three month window and the opening quarter of the new year, which may in part be down to a long Covid shutdown at its Vietnamese production base.

South Korean battery manufacturer LG Energy Solution has launched a new inverter in the Australian market, adding a 5 kW hybrid inverter to its Residential Energy Storage Unit (RESU) Home battery energy storage range.

The 97%-efficient microinverter has a power output of up to 960 VA and APsystems claims it is the most powerful dual microinverter in the world.

Multiple factors affect the productive lifespans of residential solar inverters. In the second part of our new series on resiliency, we look at PV inverters.

The 3 kW inverter has an efficiency of 95% and features a surge power of 9000 VA. According to the manufacturer, the device is compatible with mainstream lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries.

Australian giant AGL Energy plans to build what will be the world’s largest ‘grid-forming’ battery in South Australia, deploying technology so novel that it yet to be clearly regulated in Australia. “Trialling something like this on the grid at this scale hasn’t been done before anywhere in the world,” Josh Birmingham, Director of Large-Scale & Project Solutions at SMA Australia, told pv magazine Australia.

Australian giant AGL Energy will soon own the world’s largest ‘grid forming’ battery, with construction on its 250 MW/250 MWh big battery to begin later this year at Torrens Island, just north of Adelaide in South Australia. The battery will be delivered by Finnish technology company Wärtsilä with inverters supplied by German company SMA Solar Technology.

The time is now for the energy consumer, says Anna Bruce, as energy “prosumers” produce, consume, and provide electricity and grid services in previously unimagined ways. Bruce, a senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales’ School of Solar Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering (SPREE), leads work on the role of distributed energy resources in the energy transition, analysing firsthand the dizzying level of complexity it brings.

Potential price rises of 14% for the solar home systems that are driving access to electricity in the world’s under-served regions could signal further arrested progress towards the UN goal of universal access by 2030.