In the era of grid parity, the "hard qualities" that inverters should possess

Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration issued the "Notice on Actively Promoting the Work Related to Subsidy-free Grid-parity Access of Wind Power and Photovoltaic Power Generation". The grid-parity access policy that has been discussed in the industry for a long time has finally been introduced!

As a key device for photovoltaic power generation, inverters have been continuously updated and iterated in technology under the stimulation of the "leader" policy, becoming the "engine" that drives the era of grid parity. Therefore, in the era of grid parity, inverters must have "hard qualities" to safeguard the "grid parity" of photovoltaics.

Quality 1: Power level continues to improve

The increase in component power drives the continuous growth of system unit scale. According to statistics, the system unit design of the first batch of leader projects was mainly 1-1.6MW, and the scale of the third batch of leaders increased to 2-3MW. It is foreseeable that the fourth batch of leaders will have a power generation unit of at least 3MW. The increase in component power drives the continuous expansion of system units. In order to obtain lower cost per kilowatt-hour and higher returns, it is imperative to increase the power of the inverter.

Quality 2: Voltage levels continue to improve

Since the implementation of the "Leader" project, in order to reduce the initial investment cost of power stations, the 1500V system solution has gradually become the mainstream technical solution. The increase in 1500V DC input voltage and 800V AC output voltage not only reduces the system investment cost, but also has a good promoting effect on system efficiency, allowing the era of photovoltaic power station parity to come sooner.

Quality 3: Capacity ratio continues to rise

The choice of the optimal capacity-to-capacity ratio is related to the investment structure of the power station. In the early stages of the development of the photovoltaic industry, component prices were high and accounted for a large proportion of the investment. The capacity-to-capacity ratio selection tended to be a 1:1 configuration of inverters and components, which ensured the power generation of the components. However, as the photovoltaic industry has become increasingly mature, component prices have dropped significantly, and the proportion of total investment has gradually decreased, while the proportion of public utilities in investment has gradually increased. The market is more inclined to develop in the direction of increasing the capacity-to-capacity ratio (to obtain higher returns).

Quality 4: Continuously improving overload capacity

According to statistics, the third batch of 10 application leader bases have bifacial modules accounting for more than 50%; and the three technology leader bases have bifacial modules accounting for more than 67%. The continuous application of bifacial modules and the increasing capacity ratio require inverters to continuously "empower" the power generation of power stations, which requires inverters to have a higher output overload capacity to "match".

Quality 5: Increasing demand for intelligent maintenance

The advent of the era of parity requires that photovoltaic power stations have lower costs in operation and maintenance. Intelligent operation and maintenance is one of the essential features of inverters; inverters must have the function of string IV scanning and accurate fault judgment.

Quality 6: Strengthening safety

There are many performance indicators to evaluate the quality of an inverter, such as efficiency, reliability, and grid interface friendliness, but safety performance must be put first. In order to ensure the safety of the DC side, there is no need to configure a fuse. Each MPPT has an independent boost circuit. The inverter with natural anti-reverse connection function will become the "safety guard" of the parity photovoltaic power station.

Parity has arrived! As the engine that promotes grid parity, the inverter has strong "quality" in six aspects: power, voltage, capacity ratio, overload capacity, intelligence and safety. Only by comprehensively improving the power station's cost per kilowatt-hour can it "ride the wave" of the grid parity era.