After just three months of construction, SMA Solar Technology AG (SMA) put into operation a ground-based PV power plant with a peak power of 3.2 MW in the Sandershäuser Berg industrial park in Niestetal, near Kassel, Germany. In the PV power plant, SMA will test new system solutions for use all over the world. Solar power generated there will be used in the plant's immediate vicinity at SMA Solar Factory 3 as well as in other company buildings at its headquarters in Niestetal.
"The ground-based PV plant in the Sandershäuser Berg industrial park has been specially designed for our testing purposes," said Jürgen Reinert, Managing Board Member for Technical Development. "By using it, we can test our new system solutions under real conditions, in close proximity to developers and demonstrate them to our customers as if in the field. This saves us time and money. We are currently testing the SMA Utility Power System with a Sunny Central inverter, a medium-voltage block and DC technology there, which we already presented to the public at Intersolar in Munich June 2014."
In addition, the plant built on the land that the municipality of Niestetal leased to SMA, is another building block of SMA's sustainable energy supply concept. Solar power generated from the plant will be transported to the adjacent SMA Solar Factory 3 via an SMA medium-voltage cable and consumed there directly. Furthermore, the solution developed together with the Städtische Werke AG Kassel (the Municipal Utility of the City of Kassel) makes it possible then to use excess power at the remaining SMA sites in Niestetal. Thus, the share of decentralized energy SMA generates is considerably higher than the power consumed.
Along with testing inverters, Combiner technology, battery storage solutions and medium-voltage components for large-scale PV plants, SMA will also use the PV plant to gain experience in using the new 1,500 Volt-DC technology and the PV park control function.
"The ground-based PV plant in the Sandershäuser Berg industrial park has been specially designed for our testing purposes," said Jürgen Reinert, Managing Board Member for Technical Development. "By using it, we can test our new system solutions under real conditions, in close proximity to developers and demonstrate them to our customers as if in the field. This saves us time and money. We are currently testing the SMA Utility Power System with a Sunny Central inverter, a medium-voltage block and DC technology there, which we already presented to the public at Intersolar in Munich June 2014."
In addition, the plant built on the land that the municipality of Niestetal leased to SMA, is another building block of SMA's sustainable energy supply concept. Solar power generated from the plant will be transported to the adjacent SMA Solar Factory 3 via an SMA medium-voltage cable and consumed there directly. Furthermore, the solution developed together with the Städtische Werke AG Kassel (the Municipal Utility of the City of Kassel) makes it possible then to use excess power at the remaining SMA sites in Niestetal. Thus, the share of decentralized energy SMA generates is considerably higher than the power consumed.
Along with testing inverters, Combiner technology, battery storage solutions and medium-voltage components for large-scale PV plants, SMA will also use the PV plant to gain experience in using the new 1,500 Volt-DC technology and the PV park control function.
