Digital Solar

If what we are all reading and hearing from the analysts and research houses is correct, digital power is to continue to grow at a fantastic rate. This should be a great business opportunity for digital power vendors and gives us all in the power industry a new technology to get to grips with and take advantage of, but there is another side: It should help products get to market faster and run leaner and meaner - and therefore greener. I believe it will help considerably over time. And with digital power technology working to secure the IP and get the very best out of the latest Solar installations, this is further proof of the benefit. Solar has proven its contribution as a green energy source already. With their capability to increase the efficiency of solar systems, module level power management (MLPM) solutions are set for fast growth, with almost 40% of residential PV installations expected to use the technology in 2014, a new IHS iSuppli research indicates. Global shipments of MLPM systems, a category consisting of microinverters and optimizers, are set to rise to 6.2GW in 2014, up by nearly a factor of 40 from 160MW and by the end of 2014, 38% of residential PV installations worldwide will employ MLPM solutions, up from 2% in 2010. With the MLPM market still in its very early stages, competitors are starting to flood into the business. There are at least 15 companies in the MLPM space, with more coming over the horizon. But on the business side, while new PV installations are expected to rise robustly in 2011, the road to growth will be bumpy, with inventories throughout the solar industry expected to surge in the first quarter because of a temporary dip in demand, , IHS believes. Stockpiles for materials and products across the PV supply chain are set to spike in the first quarter, as a result of a short-term softening in demand for new solar installations. Days of inventory (DOI) will expand by 22.9% for crystalline silicon (c-Si) modules and by 21.4% for thin-film (TF) modules. The industry average DOI for c-Si modules in the first quarter of 2011 will reach 48, up from 37 in the fourth quarter of 2010. DOI for thin-film modules during the same period will reach 41, up from 32 days. PV modules are expected to suffer the most pronounced jump in inventories, but solar polysilicon, wafer and cell materials also will see DOI increases. These developments serve as an early indication of a looming overcapacity situation. However, the inventory spike will be confined to just the initial two to three months of the year. The road to green was never going to be an easy ride, but good for business, power technology and the environment. www.powersystemsdesign.com