SunWave Roof and Ground-Mount Solutions

Smart Utility-Grade Solar Energy Solution

Petra Solar’s SunWave array solutions offer solar energy generation, smart grid communications and control, and electric grid reliability capabilities with certified, utility-grade robustness for use in rooftop and ground-mount configurations. SunWave systems bring solar online faster, enabling meaningful energy generation in more configurations in less time.

The SunWave solution centers around a solar AC Module that mounts quickly and safely to rooftop and groundmount arrays to deliver power directly to the electric grid or behind the meter. AC Modules consist of a high efficiency solar module and a Smart Energy Module (SEM™) with smart grid communications capability.

Configuration

A complete SunWave roof or ground-mount solution includes:

• SunWave AC Module (solar module plus SEM)
• SunWave Communicator®
• Energy Portal software
• Rack and cable system Smart Energy Module

The SEM optimizes and manages solar energy production on an individual solar module basis, providing energy harvests averaging more than 10% greater than traditional solar solutions and supports a wider variety of configurations. The SEM also meters energy that is output to the electric grid and safely disconnects the output in the event of a grid fault or disconnect.

Petra Solar’s SEM does more than simply provide utilities with visibility into solar energy production. The SEM provides an added benefit of visibility into the distribution grid, and means to mitigate grid secondary performance issues. Each SEM measures the voltage of the electric grid, enabling utility visibility of secondary grid voltage over an area as wide as the solar deployment. SEMs also have the capability to produce reactive power (VAR) to help mitigate voltage or powerfactor instability on the grid.

Communications Petra Solar provides smart grid communications for SunWave systems using ZigBee® wireless mesh networking supported by cellular, Ethernet, or WiMax backhaul networks. The scalable communications system allows individual monitoring and control of each SunWave AC Module. When coupled with the Petra Solar Energy Portal, this system also enables remote management of geographically dispersed solar arrays. SunWave communications also support future-proofing of the system through remote upgrade capabilities to leverage future applications and comply with emerging standards; and can be expanded to support integration with other smart grid management solutions.

Technical Specifications