Interface for renewable energy system
AssigneeTechnology Research Corporation
InventorsAldo P Della Sera, Arnold Kravitz
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An improved interface for renewable energy systems is disclosed for interconnecting a plurality of power sources such as photovoltaic solar panels, windmills, standby generators and the like. The improved interface for renewable energy systems includes a multi-channel micro-inverter having novel heat dissipation, novel mountings, electronic redundancy and remote communication systems. The improved interface for renewable energy systems is capable of automatic switching between a grid-tied operation, an off grid operation or an emergency power operation. The interface provides for monitoring and for detecting performance and/or faults in power sources such as photovoltaic solar panels.
Claims9
An apparatus for mapping and identifying performance for a solar panel array, the solar panel array comprising a plurality of solar panel groups and each solar panel group comprising a plurality of solar panels, the apparatus comprising:
- a plurality of multi-channel micro-inverters, wherein each multi-channel micro-inverter comprises a plurality of micro-inverters corresponding to a plurality of numbered inverter ports, wherein each multi-channel micro-inverter is assigned to one of the plurality of solar panel groups, and wherein the numbered inverter ports of each respective multi-channel micro-inverter are configured to be connected to a single solar panel in an assigned solar panel group;
- a trunk line connecting the plurality of multi-channel micro-inverters to a circuit breaker;
- a polling circuit connected to the plurality of multi-channel micro-inverters through the trunk line and the circuit breaker, wherein the polling circuit is configured to generate a polling signal transmitted to each of the multi-channel micro-inverters upon closing the circuit breaker;
- and
- wherein each multi-channel micro-inverter is configured to transmit data in response to the polling signal from the polling circuit after an elapsed time corresponding to a value associated with each of the multi-channel micro-inverters.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.