Enphase Energy, Inc. , a global energy technology company and the world's leading supplier of microinverter-based solar and battery systems, today announced that Enphase microinverter-based solar systems are becoming increasingly preferred for commercial installations by government and community organizations in Australia seeking to offset daytime electricity costs and make progress towards net zero goals.
Wollongong City Council in New South Wales recently deployed a total of 549 Enphase IQ™7A microinverter-based solar panels totalling 220 kW on the Council's multi-story Stewart Street car park. The installation is expected to reduce the adjacent 6 Star Green Star-rated Administration building's electricity costs by as much as one quarter annually.
"The project utilizes the roof of the car park to generate renewable energy that could offset energy consumption and make progress towards the Council's net zero goals. The Council selected Enphase microinverters for the car park’s rooftop solar system because it had used them successfully to optimize performance, simplify maintenance, and ensure safety on smaller systems and wanted the same benefits for this larger-scale project."
Nicolas Noslier, project manager at Autonomous Energy, an Enphase installer
Enphase IQ microinverters leverage Enphase's unique software-defined architecture and semiconductor integration for excellent reliability and economies of scale. Enphase microinverters are subjected to a rigorous reliability and quality testing regimen with more than one million cumulative hours of power-on testing to provide exceptional performance under heat, high humidity, salty air, extreme cold, and harsh climate conditions. The Company's microinverters are designed to be long-lived energy assets and are backed by a 10-year limited warranty in the Australian solar market, which can be extended for a fee for up to 15, 20, or 25 years.
In another example from New South Wales, the Milton Ulladulla ExServos Club deployed a 215 kW, 581 solar panel system fitted with Enphase IQ™7+ microinverters. With 85 employees and 13,500 members, the Club has deep roots in its community, supporting many local sports and other community organizations, making system reliability and solar fire safety critical to the project.
"Microinverters provide us with monitoring for each solar panel, so we can see how well a panel is working and easily identify a problem,” said Darryl Bozicevic, chief executive officer at Milton Ulladulla ExServos Club. "With an average of 1,000 to 2,000 people visiting the club daily, safety was an important part of our decision, which also encouraged us to choose Enphase. We've budgeted on a five-year payback."
The ability to monitor each panel's performance is essential to improving diagnostics, fault identification, and reducing long-term maintenance costs for commercial systems. The Wollongong Council and Milton Ulladulla ExServos Club sites are both outfitted with the Enphase IQ Gateway™, which connects the solar systems to the Enphase App™ and helps make per-panel energy monitoring and insights for operations and maintenance easy.
"We proved to the club that solar panels equipped with Enphase microinverter-based systems perform better than panels using string inverters," said Glenn Cooper, managing director at installer SunnyAfternoons, an Enphase Installer Network Platinum member. "In addition to the advantages of module-level reporting, safety was paramount. Enphase microinverters convert DC energy produced by the panels to AC energy right on the panel, so there are no high voltage DC cables running through the roof, which eliminates the risk of a DC arc-fault fire."
"Our distributed and all-AC architecture combined with panel-level monitoring means there is no doubt that Enphase microinverter-based solar systems are smart and safer choices for solar assets installed on commercial facilities," said Dave Ranhoff, chief commercial officer at Enphase Energy. "We are proud to see our technology leveraged by government and community-based organizations in Australia to not only help reduce their energy bills, but also to help meet their renewable energy goals."
About Enphase Energy, Inc.
Enphase Energy, a global energy technology company based in Fremont, CA, is the world's leading supplier of microinverter-based solar and battery systems that enable people to harness the sun to make, use, save, and sell their own power—and control it all with a smart mobile app. The company revolutionized the solar industry with its microinverter-based technology and builds all-in-one solar, battery, and software solutions. Enphase has shipped more than 39 million microinverters, and over 1.7 million Enphase-based systems have been deployed in more than 130 countries.