SMA has been selected to supply inverters for the largest solar PV plant in Honduras – the 24 MW Pavana Solar Park in Choluteca.
880 Sunny Tripower 24000TL-US three-phase, transformerless SMA solar inverters will be used in the facility along with 22 SMA Cluster Controllers; which provided advanced system monitoring and control.
Large central inverters are often used in facilities of this size, but the Park’s designers – Florida-based EPC Sybac Solar LLC – chose decentralized units for reasons relating to cost, yield, site accessibility and redundancy.
“For a project of this size, the Sunny Tripower was the logical choice because it combines the sophistication of SMA’s utility-scale approach and the benefits of a decentralized PV design concept,” said Henry Dziuba, president and general manager of SMA America. “The Sunny Tripower will provide the Pavana Solar Park with high efficiency, reduced installation costs and simplified transportation, among many other benefits.”
The SMA Cluster Controllers to be used at the solar farm feature ethernet-based Speedwire fieldbuses plus dual-core processors and offer monitoring and control of up to 75 solar inverters.
As mentioned in an earlier article, the Pavana Solar Park will also include 79,200 Yingli solar panels.
Pavana Solar Park is expected to be completed early next year and will generate more than 42 GWh annually – equivalent to the annual energy consumption of approximately 61,000 Honduran households.
In other news from SMA, the company reported a better third quarter; with 1.3 gigawatts of inverter output sold. This was a substantial improvement on Q1 and Q2 of 2014, but still wasn’t up to expectations. Q1-Q3 saw a total 3.3GW capacity sold.
“The increase in demand in the third quarter was not as sharp as expected. First, projects were postponed until the fourth quarter of 2014 and next fiscal year. Second, commercial business in Europe deteriorated again compared to the first half of the year,” said SMA CEO Pierre-Pascal Urbon.
“For the fourth quarter of 2014, we expect a better sales situation, which we can already discern in SMA’s high order backlog.”
SMA says the most important foreign markets for the company so far this year include North America, Australia, Japan and Great Britain.
