Solar Growth Powers Massachusetts Inverter Manufacturer

New Solar systems installations continue to show up all over our landscape.  Clean energy installations are getting bigger and more visible. Thankfully many of these installations are using a locally manufactured inverter.  We may have lost Evergreen Solar to China but other critical components of the system are still made here in the USA.

A typical solar system - Boston

Solectria Renewables, a Massachusetts-based manufacturer of inverters, string combiners and web-based monitoring is looking forward to 2011!  They are expecting a great year, a year of exponential growth.

The fast-evolving growth of the photovoltaic market is real and is driven by the need to add power to the grid.  The latest unrest in the Middle East and the rise in oil prices underscore our countries need for alternative energy sources.

Federal regulations mandate that a specific percentage of electric power generation must be made from renewable sources, so this push for new installed green energy has legs and is expected to continue. Solar plants and the momentum these installations bring will benefit not only the industry but also the country.

Government incentives no doubt encourage this growth.  Utilities seeking to diversify their portfolios provide an additional stimulant to the marketplace.  Solar PV is an emerging industry and along with wind and geothermal it will support more and more of our countries demand for clean power.

Anita Worden co-owner of Solectria explains their growth plan, “we expect 80 percent of our growth will be in the large scale utility size installations (three phase grid-tied systems) while 20 percent will be in the smaller commercial and residential systems. Our team has planned for this expansion and backed by over twenty years of industry experience with inverters we are ready to support our customers, new and old alike.”  Solectria provides engineering support along with the best products suitable for any given installation.

Solectria continues to re-engineer its existing product lines, build custom products, while introducing new high efficiency inverters. This dedication and effort, in many ways has made them the go-to company in the Northeast if not the US.

New product introductions for the coming year include bigger and more efficient models, including some refreshed products with improvements that largely have been customer driven; Solectria gathers customer feedback via their product/installation questionnaire to aid in new products design.  In part, the higher efficiency products and updated software address the needs of the survey and of the smart grid expectations.

Solectria’s product lines include: “Smart Grid inverters (SGI) 225kW, 266kW, and 300kW which have achieved 97.5% CEC efficiency- the highest CEC efficiency in the industry.”  Meeting and exceeding existing standards qualify these inverters for additional bigger projects.  The latest product, their SGI 500KW meets all UL requirements and so this inverter will be utilized in many of the largest installations.

However, the work for manufacturers in this industry does not end with the building of great products.  They need to educate, service and commission their installations.  A visit to their web site www.solren.com allows one to learn about their products, installations and sizing tools. You can sign- up for webinars, training or just work with the information or tools on the site.

Expansion also requires new employees. Solectria is hiring and looking to get the best, continuing the trend established by their executive team.  Anita and James Worden along with Michael Zuercher –Martinson and Aybike Doganci Crott are the founding partners, with impressive resumes.  Graduates of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bernese University, and Elizabethtown College.  They know what they need and are determined to get the right people in place for their journey.

Solectria prefers solar installers to contact them early in their project planning should they have questions or concerns about the inverter choice, efficiencies etc.  They have the depth of engineering in house, which can help, answer questions, and provide solutions.

Based in a restored and renovated old mill building in Lawrence, MA it is nice to see Solectria growing and expanding in step with the industrial heritage of the region.  Solectria has been ramping up to meet the new demand of a new industry, breathing life, jobs and growth into the local economy.  It’s nice to see “Made in the USA” again.