Latest / Clean Power Hour / Distributed vs. Centralized String: Optimizing PV Plants with the 250 KW, 600v Inverters with CPS America | EP235

Transcript

Distributed vs. Centralized String: Optimizing PV Plants with the 250 KW, 600v Inverters with CPS America | EP235 · Clean Power Hour

• 0:50
  Bryan Wagner: 71% of the market globally, globally is now installing string invert, only 21% globally is installing central so it is a race to that conversion to become 100% if you take the 21% globally that are installing central verb, the lion shares in the US. So we have done a poor job, in our opinion, being the market leader to get string inverters deployed.
• 1:19
  intro: Are you speeding the energy transition here at the Clean Power Hour, our hosts, Tim Montague and John Weaver, bring you the best in solar batteries and clean technologies every week. Want to go deeper into decarbonization. We do too.
• 1:34
  intro: We're here to help you understand and command the commercial, residential and utility, solar, wind and storage industries. So let's get to it together. We can speed the energy transition.
• 1:48
  Tim Montague: Welcome to the Clean Power Hour. Live. I'm Tim Montague, your host today, optimizing utility scale solar with 250 kW 600 volt string inverters. My guest speakers today are Bryan Wagner, president and GM of CPS America, and Anton Patton, Vice President of Product Management at CPS America. CPS America is the number one market shareholder for three phase string inverters for seven of the past eight years, the company's installed over eight gigawatts of three phase string inverters across 20,000 sites in the United States. Today, we'll be making an in depth exploration of the latest innovations in utility scale solar design. Our expert panel will dive into the advantages and trade offs of distributed versus centralized string inverter architectures, focusing on the brand new CPS 250 kW 600 volt inverter. Our panelists are Bryan Wagner, President gm of CPS America.
• 2:52
  Tim Montague: Wagner oversees the overall strategic direction and operational effectiveness of CPS, ensuring alignment with its goals and mission. As the leader of the company, Wagner drives product innovation and competitive pricing strategies while emphasizing customer support, he recognizes the importance of providing a positive experience through both staff and products in the inverter industry. Under his guidance, CPS America has achieved number one market share for three phase string inverters in seven of the past eight years. He is joined by Anton Patton, Vice President of Product Management at CPS America. Patton leads the company's CNI and utility product strategy and engineering initiatives. His responsibilities include overseeing the support for the existing product portfolio, assessing new product applications and driving the development of innovative solutions tailored for the US market. I'm Tim Montague, your host, check out all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com Give us a rating and a review on Apple and Spotify. That is the best thing you can do to help others find this content and reach out to me on LinkedIn. I love hearing from our webinar attendees and listeners with that. I will kick this off with an introduction from Bryan Wagner, the president of CPS, Bryan, tell us about the 250 kW, 600 volt inverter. Why is this such an important product for CPS,
• 4:32
  Bryan Wagner: thanks. Tim, Yeah, hello, everyone. I would say, this has been a product we've been working on for about two and a half, three years. So excited to, I would say, probably calling this more of a soft launch. We have showed the product a few times now in the market, and we are expecting UL here in the next month or two.
• 4:54
  Bryan Wagner: So I would say, when, once you have UL, it's officially kicked off, and you're kind of in a waiting pattern until then. You know, for the last two and a half, three years, we have been developing this product. And I'd say what we were, you know, really, probably shocked by was, and I know Anton has some data on, is the ability to create a virtual central solution with a string inverter. And when the order started to come in, you know, from our early days, we launched the 125 product in 2017 actually to market. I think our first shipments were early, 2018 we learned a ton. You know, I think we we were quite surprised. You know, if you fast forward to today, we were quite surprised that half of the inverter or half of the solar projects went to centralized string or created that virtual central topology. Right versus the traditional string inverter, you know what we call standard, standard wire box option, or traditional string inverter route. We were shocked by that, because we've always been known for our distributed wire box feature, our separable wire box feature in our distributed string architecture, which made three phase string, you know, like, like, accessible for projects one to 20 megawatts over the past five years. You know, very common. And you know, sped a lot of projects up. We always have had those in stock.
• 6:20
  Bryan Wagner: You know, many advantages that the 125 offered. But I think, you know, we expected probably 80 to 90% of the orders that were coming in in the 2017, 18 days, they were coming in all traditional string. We were expecting that trend to continue. We were quite shocked to see today that half of the projects that we're doing are centralized now. So that's really why we decided to go ahead and offer the 250 and a 600 volt architecture like we had with the 101 25 but it's, you know, seven years ago was the release of the 101 25 it was a lot of new technology. And I think, you know, we had a lot of lessons learned and and and exciting things that we're offering in the market today from some of those mistakes that we made and others made. And, you know, I think that's why we're so excited today. Tim,
• 7:09
  Tim Montague: very cool and Anton, since you are knee deep in product, why don't you give us your perspective on and a quick overview of this product?
• 7:19
  Tim Montague: What are some of the features and benefits that you think customers are so keen on? Yeah,
• 7:28
  Anton Patton: well, first of all, I'd like to say I'm honored to be included in this expert panel and considered an expert.
• 7:36
  Anton Patton: I've been in the solar industry since about 2013 but there's, there's always more to learn. So I'm, I'm still learning, like all of us in the industry. But yeah, I mean, for the 250 kW, 600 volt product we're launching, we are really excited about all the features that we have included in this. We I mean, we work closely with our customers, the designers, installers, technicians in the field, and in my role, I've been able to take a lot of that feedback and work with our R and D team on what are the best solutions, what are the best fit? How do we help with this energy transition? How do we help these projects be successful? And some of the features that are included, Bryan mentioned, you know, our wire box options. And one of the key features that we've had in in previous products is our separate wire box so that, for those that aren't familiar, the power electronic section of the inverter is separable and can be easily swapped or replaced without touching any of the DC conductors, AC cables, communications. So it really makes if an inverter does need to be replaced, it can be a simple, easy job without needing specialized technicians and and long lead times for parts. So that's, that's one, I guess, key feature we have our both are distributed and centralized wire box options. So you know, depending on how a customer wants to design their system, they can bring strings directly to the inverter, or they can combine the DC side and bring a single circuit to the inverter.
• 9:25
  Anton Patton: Other kind of key features we're going to have DC arc fault protection, as well as an enhanced DC feature, which we can talk more about, for additional protection of the inverter, as well as some of the new functions that have been included in our utility scale inverters, like reactive power at Night, for grid support, PID mitigation, if needed. So, yeah, I mean, definitely a lot, you know, we're excited about that's included in in this product. Are your
• 9:59
  Tim Montague: solar and storage assets performing at their peak?
• 10:02
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• 11:51
  Anton Patton: Yeah, so I guess with string inverter technology, one of the advantages of having a string inverter is the ability to bring strings DC home runs directly to the inverter without needing any DC combining. Now with large systems, one of the trade offs is, yes, you'll have shorter DC runs, but you'll also have longer AC runs. So depending on the site layout the design, we're seeing a lot of projects where the inverter string inverters, when you have a lot of them, you can have them in a centralized location at the site, or several centralized locations. The advantages of that is you would have shorter AC runs. The inverters being located in the same place is makes it more accessible for on site technicians during, you know, commissioning, troubleshooting, maintenance, but then you know that does require DC combining at the array, and we are seeing a lot of technical, technological advances on The the DC side, things like cable harnesses to save on equipment and labor costs and kind of different Bos designs there. So yeah, I think there's, there's definitely advantages for both. And like Bryan mentioned, we've seen, at least in the commercial industrial space and large scale systems, you know about 5050, of designers bringing the strings directly to the to the inverters, not needing any of the the DC combining equipment.
• 13:29
  Anton Patton: But also, you know, half the systems having that centralized approach where you've got DC combining, and you know the inverters located near the near the transformers.
• 13:44
  Tim Montague: So there's kind of this, this scale that people are weighing against. There's capex on the one hand, right? What does it cost to buy the equipment and install it? And then there's the OPEX. And the OPEX has several factors there.
• 14:01
  Tim Montague: You know, how much power are you able to produce? How easy is the product to access when it comes to O and M, when you guys think about some of these or this balancing act that developers and asset owners are doing, do you see a well, one advantage of this 600 volt technology. Do you see a clear signal in terms of distributed versus centralized?
• 14:29
  Tim Montague: It sounds like it's a both and, but just curious, and we're getting quite a few questions from the audience. So thank you very much. Really appreciate you guys being here. Keep the questions coming. We will get to those. So capex, CapEx versus OpEx. How do how do you see that? And how do you guide developers and asset owners?
• 14:55
  Anton Patton: Yeah, I can. I can probably start with a couple points. I mean, when we're talking to asset owners about projects, you know, a few of the things that you knew we highlight as need to be considered it is, I guess, uptime of the system. You know, you're thinking about these systems operating for 1020, 30 years when you you have inverters that are a smaller building block, if, if one inverter needs to be maintained, you know, you're talking about, you know, a small portion of the system, where, as, if you have one large inverter that's multi megawatts, and that has to go down, you're, you know, you're talking about a lot of of loss, production and revenue. But then also on the service side, you know, if equipment does need to be replaced, how quickly can that be done? Something like a string inverter that, you know, there is a lot of availability of short lead times, you know, that can quickly get replaced back up and running, versus, you know, large equipment that requires specialized technicians to repair, you know, parts that need to be ordered and have lead times there. So those are a couple things on the the asset management side. But also, you know, performance monitoring with string inverters. You've got mppts, you know, either per inverter or even multiple MVP for inverter. And that amount of, you know, additional PowerPoint tracking can lead to higher yields of the systems, as well as more data granularity.
• 16:36
  Anton Patton: So you're really able to dive into, you know, smaller.
• 16:42
  Anton Patton: Increments of data to really see how the system's performing, we
• 16:47
  Tim Montague: have a question from the audience. Can you explain what features the 252 50 kW inverter has different from the 125 and we need to make a distinction here. CPS already has and has had a 125, and a 250, in an 800 volt configuration, I believe. Now this is a new configuration with a 600 volt so tell us a little bit about that. What, what is, what is unique about this 800 volt design?
• 17:24
  Anton Patton: Yeah, I mean, I guess it sounds like there's a couple questions. There's, you know, what is different from the 125 which is 600 volt, but also the 250 kW, that 800 volt. So with 800 volt, you know, we've launched our our 252 75 as well as our 350 kW, high power string inverters for utility scale applications. And moving to 800 volt has allowed that kind of high power per inverter. Now we've, we've launched 800 volt inverters for the last, you know, two, three years now, and I think with 800 volt AC, it was newer to the market. I think we were thinking that more of the PV and storage market would move to 800 volt AC, but we're still seeing a lot of systems being designed and installed at 600 volt AC, and I think one of the reasons for that is, you know, there is a lot of availability of equipment at 600 volts, and it's been in the market for years and years. So I think even though there is 800 volt equipment now available, it seems like systems are still being designed and using this 600 volt AC equipment. And you know, transformers are one part of that. And I think with transformers with such long lead times for that equipment, you know, those get specked out many months or even years in advance.
• 18:56
  Anton Patton: So we're still seeing, at least with with our customers, a lot of systems being designed at 600 volt versus 800 now we are offering both, so we'll have options for for our customers depending on their projects.
• 19:12
  Bryan Wagner: Yeah. Tim, I was going to mention or add and thank you, Anton, I would agree that we believe this could be our most innovative product launch ever. We've put out some pretty good products over the years. Our workforce for many years now has been our 5060 kilowatt platform. And I think you know, you and I talked, you know, probably the last couple years about this Tim is that in that category, the 5060, kilowatt that has not been the highest power class inverter for a long time. But what we felt was with R D, which we don't always agree with R D strategy, and I think it's probably the one of the most biggest advantages to CPS, is we, we really drive product development here in the US, a lot of companies like us with say, you know, parents or grandparents, child type relationships, you know, here, Anton and I are tasked with, really, the Americas to drive the business.
• 20:17
  Bryan Wagner: We don't make decisions on products globally today. We do help shape the decisions for products globally. For examples, Chint has done about 10 to 15 gigawatts of central inverter and globally, and zero in the US, I shouldn't say zero. I think we probably shipped 20 units, or something like that, of 100 kilowatt Central, maybe 2014 through 2015 something like that, but we did. We did kill off that product line and made very strategic, I would say, very long term decisions that didn't pay off in the short term for what we believed in. And now Chint as a whole is only doing string inverters. We're really proud of that kind of position that we're in where we drive the business, or we drive the product development cycle from the US, and really it comes from the customer experience and the customer's feedback. And so we feel this one could be the best product launch we've ever had.
• 21:14
  Bryan Wagner: And that's mainly, I can't say, for the whole industry, for the whole renewables industry. I think it will disrupt many different types of projects, and certainly the size of projects.
• 21:23
  Bryan Wagner: I think we've done a good job.
• 21:27
  Bryan Wagner: As you mentioned, the last seven years consecutive we've been number one market share for commercial and utility scale string inverters, or what we say, three phase strength. That hasn't been easy to do, especially with some product challenges along the way, but it's been because I. Think the way we've built our technology so it's serviceable, that distributed wire box, or separable wire box, and distributed architecture became something that we could even have poor product performance.
• 21:53
  Bryan Wagner: But if it's serviceable, and we provide the best service, we provide the best focus on our business and our solar operations, we can continue to, you know, drive the customers efficient. You know, their yields higher, even with a with a product that's had challenges.
• 22:11
  Bryan Wagner: So we did that. We've come through that with the 125 for example, this year, we expect that category for us, in the 101 25 category, to approach one gigawatt, which is kind of wild.
• 22:24
  Bryan Wagner: I mean, all of our inverters combined last year in 2023 we were probably at a 1.7 1.8 gigawatt business, right? The entire three phase string market is only under five gigawatts. I think 4.9 something was what the third party data showed us. But what we're more excited about, if you, if you think about it, is, I think, when are we in the 30 to 40 gigawatt total market, something like that, right? Tim, so we, we feel we can expand into those categories outside of residential, which maybe makes up, you know, 5% or five gigawatt or so, maybe a little bit north of that, we feel we can expand into every other project in the US with strength from, we say, you know, say two megawatt to two gigawatt. We say a lot, but I think, you know, really, you could take 100 kilowatt to, you know, if you could build a couple gigawatt plant, we believe that technology is very repeatable, and the reason we're so excited about the release of the product is from all the lessons learned in the field and what customers need, because there is that capex or OPEX trade offs and different topologies or terrains that you're dealing with. So there's advantages of the, you know, multiple MPPT Technology.
• 23:46
  Bryan Wagner: There's advantages when you pair that with, say, bifacial or, you know that the solar panel technology changes, but yeah, the 250 600 volt being commercially off the shelf 10 years from now, that 600 volt off the shelf technology that has existed for many years is probably a slight advantage compared to 800 volts. 10 years from now, we can't all say that it's been as successful in the US, right? I think Huawei was actually the first one with a string inverter, maybe 45 kilowatts, or something like that. 2016 2017 they launched, I can't recall exactly, but that it was, it was a very strong inverter. It was, it was, was widely adopted. But that was always the the gap there was 800 volt parts. So when we released the 275-252-7058, 100 in the end of, what was that? End of 2021, really, at that time, you know, we're still all getting through covid, Chip shortages, all of those challenges, we didn't get the deployment that we were expecting because Eaton switchgear was 6070, wheat lead times no, nobody could pair anything with our inverters. So I think where we were a little, you know, almost lucky in a way, but also it was frustrating for our product development cycle, or for our finance department, sitting on all this cash and inventory, I know, has been a challenge. It was frustrating that we couldn't get those string inverters out fast enough. So that broke that we broke through with technology called the breaker box that allowed us to create almost our own switch gear or more availability in the market. And that drove, that's driven this year, 2023, and 2024, is really when the deployment started of the of the 252, 75 800 volt. The challenge, though, is that it's one chassis. It's it's not a separable wire box. It's 800 volts. You know, if you're saying two, 250, 800 versus 250, 601 601 chassis versus separable wire box that alone would basically create that 250, or 275, to be extinct against our own product. So where we feel we are strong is that we have gigawatts of deployment of that product. So that's not new in the field. And where we feel so excited about this 250 600 launch launch is that we believe, as we continue to deploy more string inverters globally for commercial and now utility, that the project sizes will get much larger. So for example, in 2021 or 2022 we would have had to have design wins in 2019 2020 or 2021 which didn't even exist. The technology didn't exist, because that's the longer sales cycles for utility. So just today, we really needed to be in the game for the designs in 2022 2023 and so on. And um. I'd say, you know, Tim, when you and I first spoke couple years ago, with respect to your show, which we love, by the way, we love the Clean Power Hour. We appreciate being on and all that you're doing for the industry to grow solar and storage. Well, thank you. Yeah, no, we thank you. I mean, we're so excited that I think the fact is, back then, I was saying that maybe one out of 20 projects would even consider string, and now it's closer to probably one out of every two projects that we see for larger projects, 100 megawatts plus, are actually looking at string.
• 27:18
  Bryan Wagner: It's a new time. And you know, again, our bet from maybe 10 years ago as individuals or or wanting this string inverter technology to be where it is now, I think would have went a lot faster if it wasn't for covid. So, for example, 71% the data we just got the data, 71% of the market globally, globally is now installing string inverter. Only. 21% globally is installing central so it is a race to that conversion to become 100% if you take the 21% globally that are installing central verb, the lion shares in the US. So we have done a poor job, in our opinion, being the market leader to get string inverters deployed. And I believe if we had, maybe in the early years, maybe the first two to three years of our 125 launch, if we didn't have as many challenges as we had back then, I believe we would have already kind of been there. And if you if you certainly didn't have covid. But because of those two events, really not just us with challenges on the on the 125, it was a market challenge.
• 28:26
  Bryan Wagner: It was industry challenge. Where the new IGBT technology that came out from 1500 volt, you know, DC input, to 600 volt AC output, there were several of us that had challenges with that and and really that challenge, Tim comes down to that, you know that singular lack of boost stage in the inverter one, one or two level topology versus three level topology, right?
• 28:50
  Bryan Wagner: That you know there's trade offs in the multiple of MPT or higher yields, or even trade offs for more complexity compared to one MPPT.
• 28:59
  Tim Montague: The Clean Power Hour is brought to you by CPS America, the maker of North America's number one three phase string inverter with over six gigawatts shipped in the US. The CPS America product lineup includes three phase string inverters ranging from 25 to 275 kW. Their flagship inverter, the CPS 252 75 is designed to work with solar plants ranging from two megawatts to two gigawatts.
• 29:26
  Tim Montague: The 252 75 pairs. Well, with CPS America's exceptional data communication controls and energy storage solutions. Go to chintpowersystems.com. To find out more. So Bryan, yeah, we, we really want to tell this story, though, about how CPS works with your customers. And you know, I had the pleasure of interviewing CJ colovito, the vice president of engineering at standard solar when I was at re plus, here we are in September 2024 on the heels of re plus, 45,000 solar professionals coming together in Anaheim. And it was very clear that CJ, and I'm sure there are other customers that were in dialog with CPS, but this is a very unique story, I think that we really want to tell for this audience, is how the product came to light. And I mean, CJ was just bubbling with enthusiasm for this 250 kW, 600 volt product. He rattled off just a string of benefits for standard solar, and with an emphasis on, you know, their larger scale. DG projects, these are one to 10 megawatt projects.
• 30:43
  Tim Montague: But tell us a little bit about how CPS works with customers, because it is pretty unique. Yeah,
• 30:53
  Bryan Wagner: thank you. I think the innovation center that we launched in 2022 was really big.
• 30:56
  Bryan Wagner: We have something called CPS labs out of there, where it's a mix between, or a blend between a few different things. One is working on the existing products and learning about what's challenges are in the field and getting that back with with with our product development here in the US, but also rd teams, and then getting out to the field with both product development and R D teams or service engineering, and squaring away any challenges that exist, because, like, once you ship the product, then it's like, Okay, now we get to work, we get to dial the product in. It could take several years. We hope it doesn't meaning for the performance to get to the level of which, like our, like our 5060, for example, hasn't had many upgrades in in a couple years now. And I know I didn't finish my thought earlier. Tim, I. On that we declined several inverters above 5060 because they didn't have the same feature set. So I think we declined several inverters above the 101 25 from a concept, conceptual standpoint, you know, took seven years to launch our next category for the upgrade from the 101 25 which this is 250, kilowatt, six. 600 volt is an upgrade to the 101 25 the reason we, we, we took so long, really, was, was because the tech, the chip technology, and things didn't exist. So we kind of had to wait until the timing was right. The things weren't, you know, you can't make a string inverter 5000 pounds.
• 32:21
  Bryan Wagner: It's not a string inverter. So I think right now, we're, you know, we're listening to customers like CJ, he's been tremendous. And you know, someone I've known a long time, personally, but also in the industry, someone that's really, like, really persevered in the industry to drive the technology. And folks like us, not just CPS, but other inverter brands that have been driven by folks like CJ to move faster and faster. Because I remember working with CJ way back in the day of an old legacy central inverter brand that, you know, I think for three or six months they were rebuilding the central inverter engine on site. So I remember the, you know, I don't know if he personally made a decision to to walk away from the technology of central altogether, but I've heard that story 100 times over, over the years. And I think the market, not just CJ, but the entire market, has been waiting for a product at like, if you think about a one megawatt project, four times 250, becomes a really easy building block, but also a really easy way to service that that project or that plant. And really we came into, you know, looking at this product from our customers, Tim and how can we service the projects from from one megawatt to 100 megawatt.
• 33:38
  Bryan Wagner: 250 is a great building block, and you could build it in chunks of three megawatt, four megawatt, five megawatt, whatever makes sense, which you cannot do a central say, you're building a 3.8 megawatt Central Station, and you drop that on the site. There's an advantage to that. But what if the size doesn't fit out perfect? What if? What if, you know, half the blocks fit perfect, but the other part is, has a bunch of hills or different, you know, you know, there's all kinds of advantages, you know, with strength.
• 34:07
  Tim Montague: And I think you know, what CJ said in that interview was that standard was looking for 1500 volt DC input technology, 600 volt output, centralized wire box for virtual central configuration, okay, virtual central configuration. I think this is the theme we're going to hear a lot Load break rated DC, disconnecting, which is a safety feature, and anti PID Anton. It didn't mean to interrupt you, but what did you want to say? No,
• 34:39
  Anton Patton: I was just going to add, you know, we at CPS, we approach our customers, you know, not just as a supplier, but a partner in this transition to clean energy, you know. And we we look for ways we can help develop the the right products, but also support throughout their their projects, through the development and operation.
• 35:02
  Anton Patton: And with that, we've been able to really get a lot of great feedback, not just from from someone purchasing inverters, but someone actually installing and operating. I mean, one thing I like about working at CPS is we actually listen, and the voice of customer feedback that we get is a huge part of how we spec and design our products.
• 35:28
  Anton Patton: So, you know, being in my role, you know, the way we design our products, the features that we include, you know, a huge part of that is based on feedback we get directly from our customers and working with them over the years
• 35:43
  Bryan Wagner: well, and when you said we're most bankable company, Tim, if you dig into that a little bit, being the most bankable inverter brand in the world. Now, we got voted from Bloomberg in 2023 that is kind of funny, because on the global stage, we're not there yet. We're not even close global stage of inverter technology globally, it's really because of our US business and US market.
• 36:06
  Bryan Wagner: We have such a diverse set of customers that some don't buy right? They're investors, they're developers, they're, you know, O and M providers. They're such a diverse set of partners in the industry that that aren't buyers of your technology. I think the vote of confidence on the number one most bankable brand has to do with what the customers say about you, how you handle the challenges that come up. You know, like every every business Tim, we're not perfect.
• 36:36
  Bryan Wagner: We certainly have had our set of challenges that we wish we would have done this or this that differently. But. But I think, you know, all of our, all of our folks at CPS, are really special in the sense that we care, we probably care more than others care. And then there's some really good brands and really good competitors, folks like sungrow and and SMA, for example, those are really strong competitors to CPS. You know, I think when you really get down to it. You look at the technology, it has to be with, okay, when I'm buying the technology, it's more about I'm buying from the people that will then service my technology. You know, 510, even 20 years from now. And what you believe? You know, you could be a really good, strong company now. But what are you going to be in three or five years? I think the company we're going to be in three or five years going to be a lot stronger than we are going to be right now. And I think that's, that's kind of where the vote of confidence will come from. And and what's interesting, if you take on the global stage, like if you or if you can take in the US, the central versus string battle that's kind of going out there and unfolding maybe, maybe, as we're speaking, is about our opinion is that we're so focused, singular focus, string inverter. Others that I maybe just mentioned are doing both Central and string. So every time they ship a central they kind of eat their string business. Every time they strip the ship a string, they kind of eat their central business.
• 37:58
  Bryan Wagner: We've used the analogy of kind of the lighting technology, the older fluorescent, you know, a GE or someone, if they, if they are doing that then and they're trying to deploy LED technology, it's, it's the same kind of story. So I think that's why you've seen companies like GE spin out, I think for us, you know, and we live that, we live through that in a former life with a central inverter brand that acquired string technology.
• 38:22
  Bryan Wagner: I think it's very hard to do both very well, but mainly because of the service. It's a different business. So for us, we got really singular focus, probably around 2019 that this is our bet, this is our direction. This is all we're going to do as it relates to the inverter technology. We're doing a lot of other things now that help inverter technology, like utility scale batteries, you know, five megawatt hour battery container, but it has to do all with, you know, what we believe is speed to the market, and how fast we'll build 100 megawatt, 200 megawatt, 500 megawatt plants with string. And I said earlier, if you take the 3040, gigawatt market that's here now, which is shocking to believe, right? Tim, I think you were saying on one of your podcasts about how in early 2000s was, was how many megawatts? Oh, a
• 39:15
  Tim Montague: megawatt a year.
• 39:15
  Tim Montague: In 2002 that's how big the US solar market was, how small it was? Yeah,
• 39:21
  Bryan Wagner: wow, that's wild.
• 39:21
  Bryan Wagner: So, I mean, you know, we're so fortunate that we're in a growing industry like we are, and, and all the folks in policy and, and all the leaders in that, in, you know, renewable energy transition is is so exciting, but I think for us, like to be a part of it and to help push the technology and push the our customers be able to build projects quicker, deliver higher yields to The owners, it's exciting that, you know, we could maybe grow our business even in this own class.
• 39:45
  Bryan Wagner: The 250 kilowatt 600 string inverter might be able to become what our 101 25 took seven years to become. We could do that next year, we believe so it's kind of wild. And then if we win these 100 or hundreds of megawatts type projects that'll make everything even better for when you're building a one megawatt project, because that makes us get better. And, you know, there's more, you know we have to, you know, game on the line, a little bit more, right? We
• 40:16
  Tim Montague: want to get to some of the, some of the participants questions. We have a great question here, though, for either Bryan or Anton, if solar, if a solar project owner has existing sites where central inverters are going down and the inverter is out of warranty or the manufacturers out of business, is it possible to repower one of these sites with the 250 600 volt inverter?
• 40:41
  Anton Patton: Yeah. I mean, I guess short answer is, yes, the kind of longer answer is, you know, we are seeing a lot of these repower projects. You know, it's definitely growing in the industry, especially with these sites that are 20 plus years old, with larger central inverters that are no longer available. We're getting a lot of our customers that are that have CIS sites with, you know, a good chunk of their system down, and they're looking for a solution to bring that part of the system back up. Our applications engineering team has has worked on a lot of different projects, poor retrofits and repower sites, and there, there's definitely a variety of different system designs out there, and a lot that you know needs to be considered the DC voltage, the how the DC array and DC home runs are combined, the AC voltage there. There are solutions and our 250 kW, 600 volt, as well as our other.
• 41:40
  Anton Patton: Projects. We products we currently offer can and have been used to repower old central inverters. It does, does require some engineering analysis to do it.
• 41:52
  Tim Montague: Yeah. And then the follow on, go ahead. No,
• 41:54
  Bryan Wagner: I was just going to say we've done, we've done a lot of retrofits over the years, from central to string already.
• 42:00
  Bryan Wagner: Usually it's been a block at a time. But with, I think the as the legacy systems from what would you say, like that 2008 2010 time period is when a lot of legacy started to get deployed more at scale. I think those are starting to get past their warranty period and past their point of frustration. For the owners that you know, instead of just doing one pad at a time, you'll do more. So we're, we're definitely innovating there. Tim, I think more to come on that. I think, for example, when we speak about the, what we believe will be the utility scale projects that, that you know from, call it a 50 or 100 megawatt project to a 500 megawatt project, will consider this technology now with the centralized string architecture, virtual central architecture, because on the bigger projects, right, if you have 1000 or 2000 acres, just being able to service and go to a pad at a time, right? And not now now, being able to run the home run back to the inverter at the pad and mimic a central inverter plant, right? Have your DC combiners in the field and mimic the central inverter plant. I think just that labor cost savings alone from having to walk throughout, you know, 1000 or 2000 acres is is a lot. I mean, of course, you have all of your individual string wiring, cabling that you you'll save on centralized many, many trade offs. So we also will compare that against the 350 I know we haven't talked about that too much, Tim, but we we've now shipped, we're now we've now shipped the 350 kilowatt string inverter. So the 350 kilowatt string inverter is, is really what we're comparing now, when we look at 100 megawatt project, it's the 350 versus this 250, 600 and that centralized architecture versus that traditional architecture. And what are the trade offs with less units? You know, I think that's a lot of the comparisons that have been going on the last several months and will continue over the next couple years.
• 43:58
  Tim Montague: So is this going to be available in a skidded solution? Because this is very apropos to the previous question about repowering.
• 44:07
  Bryan Wagner: Yes, of course.
• 44:07
  Bryan Wagner: We've been skidding Since 2021 so yeah, we have skidded. String available. You know, obviously another reason to excitement for this situation. Um, I don't think we've talked too much about, say, our DC enhanced technology, either. That's probably being undersold right now at this point in time, but I think we're excited that with one MPPT, you have a lot of power there in one unit. So I think ensuring that you get the safety, you know, aspect under control is something that really probably we had innovation that came from our 125 challenges in the early years. You know. So nowadays that DC enhanced technology on the 250 and 350 is something that is also something we're really excited about
• 44:59
  Tim Montague: for lay people like myself. Bryan, can you tell me more about what do you mean by DC enhanced? What is that?
• 45:06
  Tim Montague: What does that mean? I
• 45:07
  Bryan Wagner: think Anton, maybe you want to help, you know, yeah, your sense on that.
• 45:12
  Anton Patton: So the the enhanced DC switches on our 250 kW, 600 volt, just kind of high level. It's, you know, the the inverter will detect short circuit conditions, both, you know, at the PV array and in the inverter. And if it does detect that short circuit condition, it'll automatically disconnect the inverter from the PV array, so that that added protection there. If there's, you know, some sort of condition where the PV array, if it is, you know, live, it'll feed a fault. You know, the the enhanced DC feature will will disconnect the inverter. So, yeah, I think obviously, with with solar, you know, there's no, there's no switching a break or turning it off if the sun's out. So it's it's essentially having that short circuit protection from the inverter to be able to disconnect the solar that that there's no, I guess, way of,
• 46:16
  Bryan Wagner: yeah. I mean, really, we're talking with like the 125, some of the challenges that, not just DPS face, but some of the for the industry face was, like your thermal runaway that could occur, you know, like it depended, it really depended on the IGBT or chip design and things like that. And you know, a lot of the folks back in the early covid days, you know, you know, people weren't, maybe turning on sites.
• 46:42
  Bryan Wagner: Quickly, and it kind of, you know, caught us a little flat footed as an industry. And I think without having that challenge, we probably would have gotten to the technology as fast as we have. Now, I'm not saying we're happy with what how things turned out in the early days of 125 but if you could look at the the benefit, it helps a lot. And, you know, I think if we didn't have this DC enhanced technology, we wouldn't be sitting here talking about a 250 kilowatt string inverter with one MPPT. So we would have continued to push on that, that boost stage technology, which helps kind of smooth things out and makes the inverter a little bit more, I wouldn't say reliable, but, you know, some could argue that.
• 47:24
  Tim Montague: And just to be clear, this product is shipping now, right? So
• 47:29
  Bryan Wagner: with shipping here in q4 we are waiting on the final UL, the 350 has already shipped. And the 350s I'd say, in a lot of designs right now, north of 100 megawatts even. You know, it's more of a design cycle that's been happening the last even, probably year or year and a half, with the 350 the 250 is something that we've really kind of haven't marketed at all.
• 47:53
  Bryan Wagner: Tim, because of the fact that we have an existing 101 25 that's been doing very well in the market. Also, we don't want folks to start designing with something until you you know, you really have the that UL cert. We're, we're here now, though, where, you know, again, it's going to be October, November timing. And we're confident enough now to be, you know, we have some that are already designing with the the 250 600 at this point. If it's probably, if it's a q1 q2 shipment, then it's really not, not any risk at this point.
• 48:26
  Bryan Wagner: Whereas, if we talk to us, maybe back at our Innovation Day, Tim and in March, little little risky to say q3 or q4 at that point right now, q4 we will ship, you know, we'll probably have the first call it, 1000 units that will ship in q4 something, you know, some small quantity, and then that'll continue to increase with production. Like I said, what we're hoping is that, because we manufacture in Thailand, I know one of the questions we see is on the US content, we do, we do plan on releasing what our US content will be on this product.
• 49:03
  Bryan Wagner: You know, we know that's important right now. And we do manufacture in Thailand. So if we, if we could just picture the Thailand production facility is only dedicated for us. Market has six to seven gigawatt capacity right now, for this year, we aren't filling that up yet, and we want to fill that up. In fact, the closer we get to filling that up to have a six to seven gigawatt a year business, if it happens in in 2025 great. Maybe 2026 but we can scale from that. Of course, we are even entertaining or looking at the US. You know, Manu, US side of manufacturing, if that, that we have done that in the past, where we've assembled product in the US and shipped inverters in the from the US. So we're looking at that very closely. But my point is that from a production and capacity standpoint, we're not even close. From a like a module, if you think of a module, it's always supply, demand and and commodity based, I don't think strings going to be any different. I just think it's taken us very long to get here, but I think we're kind of here now, if someone has, we have customers that have one gigawatt project, if they have a one gigawatt project, or even a one gigawatt portfolio projects, and they're going all string inverter, which some are and will, then we believe we'll be the partner that will be the most ready to be able to, you know, to to stomach a seven to 10 gigawatt per year business that could happen, you know, not overnight, but can happen for sure in the next couple years.
• 50:34
  Bryan Wagner: We
• 50:34
  Tim Montague: want to get to a few more questions, and then you guys can make some concluding remarks. But somebody asked if they could get a spec, a spec sheet on the product, I think the best answer to that today is reach out to your sales rep or go to chintpowersystems.com there is a phone number right there. You can reach a live human being by calling the phone number 855-584-7168, at chintpowersystems.com, do you want to say anything else about product availability or the product itself? Yeah,
• 51:09
  Bryan Wagner: product availability, I would just count on q4, shipments. Q1, is what we call more of the by then, the normal production will be, will be ramped. In the beginning, we decided to go distributed strength for the first set of, you know, shipments, the centralized and distributed will both be available for q1 shipments, and if we're lucky, it could even be q4 for both.
• 51:34
  Bryan Wagner: But oh,
• 51:36
  Tim Montague: are you referring to the wire box? Because there's a question there also about choosing. Centralized versus distributed wire boxes. Yes,
• 51:45
  Bryan Wagner: that's what we're referring to. Tim, sorry, I know the centralized string or virtual Central is a kind of a Yeah. It's a little confusing.
• 51:50
  Bryan Wagner: Yeah, yeah. Virtual Central is basically mimicking a central inverter plant from deploying the technology centralized strings, what we call our string inverter with a central, centralized wire box. It's basically like the distributed wire box has all of the touch base, fuses the like, you know, traditional string populated combine DC combiner, whereas the the centralized is really just a way to bring from the remote DC combiner in the field back to our, our product, yeah, anything there, yeah, it's more simple. I
• 52:26
  Anton Patton: was just going to say, you know, with our inverters, with the separable wire box feature, you have the inverter and all the power electronics, the the power head, we call it, and that can be connected to either a distributed or centralized wire box option. So, like Bryan was saying, you know, whether you wanted to bring connect DC strings and home runs directly to the inverter or wire box, or if you wanted to have some sort of DC combiner, DC combiner box cable harness, and then bring a combined kind of larger cable and single circuit to the inverter. You could use our centralized wire box.
• 53:05
  Bryan Wagner: And I think someone was asking about, why are we coming to the market with the 600 volt inverter? We're referring to the AC output of the inverter, not the input. The DC input is still 1500 I think what we're studying there is the 2000 volt input, DC input, that will change, I'm sure, in the coming years. With this one is still a 1500 volt input and a 600 volt output, compared to a, you know, our 250 800 volt was the 1500 volt input still, but 800 volt output, great.
• 53:34
  Tim Montague: Well, I think we've answered most of the important questions so far. We are near the end of the hour. So I want to thank our audience for being here, great attendance, and for your questions, don't forget to reach out to your sales rep or via the website, chintpowersystems.com. Bryan and Anton. Do you want to make any concluding remarks?
• 53:59
  Bryan Wagner: Yeah, I was going to mention that we're excited about the scaling of string inverters for all sizes of projects. And in parallel, we've launched something called Chint smart power services that will be coming at a bigger you know, I think you know, you'll be hearing more from us on that. So we're excited about that, because in in our opinion, it really is about getting yourselves ready when you deploy to to service the plant years from now. And we think our chin smart power services launch will help us, you know, on some of these bigger projects, including batteries, if you're attaching batteries. So yeah. Also want to thank everybody for joining and thank you, Tim and Anton,
• 54:44
  Anton Patton: yeah, and I'll just quickly add, you know if, if there is anyone that is working on a solar PV project and think the 250 kW, 600 volt inverter would be a good fit, definitely reach out to our our team, our applications engineers And our technical team is happy to look at projects, answer any technical questions as you're as you're developing your systems and designs. And thanks thanks Tim for having us, and thanks everybody for listening. Are
• 55:17
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• 55:43
  Tim Montague: Ready to supercharge your clean energy assets? Visit W, A, T, T, C, h.io, and power up your efficiency today. Please check out all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com Give us a rating and a review on Apple or Spotify. Reach out to me on LinkedIn. You can also find Anton's and Bryan's linkedins on the webinar page. So go to cleanpowerhour.com go to the events tab, and you'll find the landing page for the event. And in the next 10 days, we'll have the recording of this posted for everyone on the podcast channel.
• 56:14
  Tim Montague: So look for that. And with that, I want to thank Anton Patton, Vice President of Product, and Bryan Wagner, president and general manager of CPS America, for joining us today. Thank you all for being here. I'm Tim Montague, let's grow solar and storage. Take care, everybody. You.