Israeli start-up Solar Edge has secured $23 million in funding to further develop its technology for increasing the efficiency of photovoltaic panels.
GE Energy Financial Services was a principle contributor to this latest round of funding and made the announcement Wednesday.
In May, SolarEdge unveiled a boosting technology for photovoltaic panels that it said could increase a solar power system's output by as much as 25 percent.
The SolarEdge system is a junction box with an integrated circuit that is embedded into existing solar photovoltaic panels to minimize the amount of electricity loss, thereby maximizing the amount of power the total system can generate. The box is designed to be used on either large-scale or residential solar panel systems.
Alex Urquhart, president and CEO of GE Energy Financial Services, said in a statement that he viewed the venture as opening the door to a more involved collaboration with joint product development and distribution between GE and SolarEdge.
Other investors that joined in the latest round of funding include Opus Capital, Walden International, Genesis Partners, Vertex Venture Capital, and JP Capital Asia.
It's the first time that GE Energy Financial Services has made an investment in an Israel-based company, GE said in a statement.
Israeli start-up SolarEdge has developed electronics to squeeze enough inefficiencies out of solar panels' wiring to make an array up to 25 percent more productive.
The company plans to disclose the details of its technology on Wednesday at the Intersolar 2009 conference in Munich, as well as to announce that German solar installer Gehrlicher will offer SolarEdge's products.
SolarEdge is seeking to address a number of performance problems common to solar power, such as lost electricity production from partial shading or converting direct current to household alternating current in an inverter. The company has raised about $35 million since it was founded in 2006.
SolarEdge's products include a junction box for solar panels, inverter, and Web-based monitoring software.
(Credit: SolarEdge)Altogether, electricity loss problems associated with wiring and placement of panels can cut a solar array's output by 20 percent to 30 percent, according to SolarEdge founder and CEO Guy Sella.
The company developed a junction box to be fitted on solar panels with an integrated circuit that fixes the voltage coming off panels. Having a steady voltage eliminates problems associated with degradations that happen when different panels' performance varies, Sella said.
The junction box is designed to work with SolarEdge's inverter to optimize the conversion of direct current to alternating current. The inverter also gathers data on temperature and output of each panel.
As part of its offering, SolarEdge has a Web-based program for monitoring performance of panels. "We have software that gives you access to all the data so you can analyze your installation and compare panels to their neighbors. It can give you an understanding of any degradation," Sella said.
The company has signed on a few solar companies to test its system, which can be used for both large-scale and home solar panel systems. It is seeking deals with manufacturers so the junction boxes can be fitted onto panels during production rather than afterward, Sella said.
The company's first product is optimized for 3-kilowatt installations, a size suitable for a single home. In the first half of next year it plans to have a version suitable for large solar parks, where a slight improvement in efficiency can have a big financial impact, Sella said. The company expects to sell 25 megawatts' worth of equipment by the end of this year, and Sella expects sales to grow rapidly next year.
There are a few companies, including Enphase Energy and SolarBridge Technologies, which are tackling the lost electricity from panels using micro-inverters. Instead of having one inverter to serve several panels, microinverters are designed to increase efficiency and monitor performance by attaching an inverter to each panel. Sella said SolarEdge's system addresses the same issue but at a lower cost.
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