It might be a breaktrhough in the renewable energy world. A little start-up Enphase Energy announced that there is already $6.5 million dollars investment.

The company makes a panels that uses a microinverter (which is  an electronics device that converts direct current from solar panels to grid-ready alternating current ) on each individual panel. This is something very new in this industry.

Each panel can also relay information on its performance to Enphase Energy’s Web site, which customers can view from a browser. The company plans to release the system in the second quarter of 2008..

Usually there is one single inverter for an array of sola pannels, which is converting DC into AC current. A microinverter is much more efficient. This way each panel will deliver at the end more energy. That’s the point. And also if you have a performance information on each individual panel, you can easily troubleshoot eventual problems.

The idea of a solar panel that can generate alternating current has been around for some time now, but here is (or will be) an exemple of production…

Source: Green Tech Blog

Tags: Micro inverters array solar pannels enphase energy microinverter renewable energy solar energy