Caterpillar gets into solar panels
3 January 2019Caterpillar has announced that SunPower will be providing its high-efficiency SunPower P-Series solar panels under the Cat brand. Offered as part of the Cat Hybrid Energy Solutions suite, the monocrystalline, shingled-cell Cat PVC395 MP solar panels are currently available through the Cat dealer network in Southeast Asia, Africa, South America, and the Middle East.
The Cat PVC395 MP solar panels are rated at 395 W per panel and achieve efficiencies of over 19 % through a shingled- cell design with multiple redundant paths for electricity flow. This eliminates many of the reliability challenges of traditional front-contact solar panels. Additionally, the panels use a unique parallel circuit architecture that significantly limits power loss from shade and soiling.
“The P-Series solar panel technology offered through our relationship with Caterpillar can generate up to 32 % more energy than conventional panels in the same space over 25 years” said Peter Aschenbrenner, executive vice president for SunPower.
The Cat Hybrid Energy Solutions suite includes the Master Microgrid Controller (MMC), which keeps loads continuously energised at the lowest cost by managing the flow of power from every source in the system, Connect Remote Asset Monitoring, which offers real-time collection and remote monitoring of site performance data in Cat Microgrid applications, and Cat Bi-Directional Power (BDP) inverters, which provide real and reactive power with grid-forming and grid-following capabilities.
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