Satcon Introduces Solstice Distributed Energy Management Solutions

Satcon Technology Corp. announced the launch of Satcon Solstice™, said to be the industry’s first complete utility grade dc architecture solution for highly efficient power conversion for large scale solar power plants. The company claims that Solstice revolutionizes energy production, while utilizing traditional solar design. It is said to deliver fine grained power harvesting and control with critical utility ready grid interconnection, and that it will boost total power production by 5-12% over designs using standard inverters.

"As renewable energy moves rapidly toward grid parity and utility scale, return on investment becomes a critical variable in measuring its success," said Steve Rhoades, Chief Executive Officer of Satcon. "With this breakthrough in power conversion technology, our contribution to the profitability equation grows significantly. Through Solstice, we now offer a complete solution from the solar panels to the grid that will dramatically increase ROI."

Building on Satcon’s solar PV inverter technologies, Solstice is described as the next generation of solar PV energy harvesting. Coupling string level power conversion with a new smaller footprint central inverter design, Solstice is a complete power solution that will provide high efficiency, localized command and control, and higher kilowatt hours per day. By converting power at each individual string, the solution virtually eliminates typical array losses from shading, soiling and panel mismatching. Solstice is also the company’s first solution with the full suite of utility features and functionality designed by Satcon, which among other benefits, facilitates the role of the inverter in the Smart Grid.

"Our customers have come to count on Satcon to deliver the highest quality and most advanced renewable energy power solutions," said Dr. Leo Casey, Satcon’s Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Engineering. "Solstice will enable our customers to deploy solar power plants that will produce more power over the life of the system. Satcon’s vision is distributed power generation based on renewable energy plants providing reliable, dependable assets to utilities. We see the Solstice system as an essential building block in creating the hardware infrastructure of the future Smart Grid."

Now entering its customer beta cycle, Satcon Solstice will be generally available this fall.