An Ideal Power hybrid converter is tested at the US National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL). Image: Ideal Power.
Power conversion specialist Ideal Power has received an order for 1.5MW of its 30kW battery converters and power conversion systems from a new system integration partner.
The technology, which focuses on Ideal Power’s Power Packet Switching Architecture (PPSA), will be integrated into commercial and industrial energy storage systems in California. The PPSA reduces the need for hardware including isolation transformers, an Ideal Power spokesman told PV Tech Storage today. As a result, the PPSA technology has a lower installation cost and easier installation process than conventional technologies as the size of the power conversion system is significantly reduced. The storage element of the 30kW converters also includes an invector that stores energy magnetically.
The new system integration partner, which placed the order, has now completed its system design and is due to start production of the systems at volume later in 2015.
The spokesman for Ideal Power declined to provide further details on the unnamed partner.
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Deliveries of Ideal Power’s power converters are also scheduled to start in late 2015 and to finish in the middle of next year.
A company statement said that the market for energy storage is expanding rapidly in densely-populated locations such as California where peak demand charges from utilities are high.
Dan Brdar, chief executive of Ideal Power, said: “We are pleased to see another partner rapidly develop and deploy an integrated system for behind-the-meter energy storage applications in California. With the growth of the energy storage market, Ideal Power continues to strengthen its foothold in the sector by partnering with new market entrants offering fully integrated solutions.”
Consumer electronics giant Sharp recently launched a new storage ‘Smartstorage’ product in California aimed at reducing demand charges for commercial customers, for which it also selected Ideal Power as supplier of its 30kW battery converter for the product.
In July solar inverter and power conversion system company KACO partnered with Ideal Power to resell and use the latter’s patented PPSA technology.
Green Charge Networks to deliver Li-Ion storage at California administrative building
In other energy storage industry news from California, US-based energy storage provider Green Charge Networks has partnered with Santa Cruz County for the installation of a lithium-ion storage system at its largest administrative building, the Santa Cruz County Government Centre. This is also the largest energy storage system at a county facility in Northern California.
The Green Charge system is an intelligent, modular system including a smart controller with software to monitor facility loads.
