Off- Grid and Grid
Connected Solar System Design.

PV Basics in a glance:

Components of PV-Systems

• Modules & inverters,
• Mounting system,
• types and costs,
• DC-cabling and connectors,
• Batteries,
• Grounding & lightning protection,
• monitoring systems,
• AC-material

Sunlight becomes electricity

• Performance and yield, global radiation, technical units
• Daily insolation, peak sun hours, azimuth and tilt angle
• Direct und diffuse sunlight, yield, the photovoltaic effect
•  SMA free software Sunny Design as source for climate data and yield
• Knowledge transfer: use the data in your design

Electrical basics to understand the correlations

• Electrical basics, current, voltage, electric power, yield, temperature and radiation dependence, series / parallel circuits of solar modules
• Standard test conditions (STC), efficiency versus price
• Practical exercises (individual and in small groups)

Solar modules and their properties

•  Module technology, types, characteristic values, production, Common modules defects and how to avoid them
• Quality, testing criteria, module comparison, module

Inverter and their properties

•  Inverter types, inverter concepts
•  PV grid tied inverter, bidirectional inverters, island inverter
•  MPP-Tracking, unbalanced load, installation sites
•  Aging mechanism, live span, service and maintenance
• Min. and max. modules in a string, parallel connection of strings, datasheet

Shading

• Types of shadows and their effects
•  Methods to identify shadows and to calculate the yield losses, 4 solutions to minimize the effects of shadows

Designing Solar PV systems
Design insights of inverters

• Design roles, max. system voltage and current, MPP range
• Nominal power ratio
• Performance ratio
•  Influence of orientation and shading
• How to choose the best inverter design
• Compare the different inverter designs regarding their yield production and the specific inverter prices
• Choosing inverters

Profitability analysis of PV plants for your customer

• Yield forecast,

• cost of a PV-plant,
• calculating Return Of Investment,
• Loans and equity, own consumption / feed in,
• calculation levelized cost of electricity;

• Cash account / compare of investments / detailed;
• Analysis and diagrams,
• arguments to convince your customer

Design a PV-array

• Design roles summary
• Determine the number of solar modules
• Pay Back Period

Stand-alone Systems, the principles of
Off Grid PV systems
 Off Grid essentials

• Energy production
• Energy storage
• Storage management
• Load management

The planning and design of off-grid systems based on selected examples

• Load analysis
• System efficiency
• PV-Generator design
• DC connected isolated photovoltaic systems
• AC connected isolated photovoltaic systems
• Properties of Batteries & Battery Design
• Designing of the hybrid energy systems

Designing Off-Grid Hybrid Energy Systems with Sunny Island Battery inverter

• functions, protections and sizing of the Sunny Island inverters and the Multicluster Box
• SMA concepts for hybrid energy systems
• Function and protections of SMA PV inverters connected to isolated low-voltage AC grids
• Function, main features and protections of Sunny Island battery inverters
• Function and protections of the SMA Multicluster Box
• Practical Design tasks of Sunny Island hybrid energy system using the SMA software Sunny Design

Installation of PV arrays in a glance

• Static issues, wind load and structural stability
• DC lines, Permanent weather resistant cable ways
• DC combiner boxes
• Surge protective devices (SPD)
• Residual current devices (RCD)
• Measurement of PV-Systems
• Measurements before and after commissioning
• Hands On Training “measurement of solar modules”
• SMA concepts for hybrid energy systems
• Function and protections of SMA PV inverters connected to isolated low-voltage AC grids
• Function, main features and protections of Sunny Island battery inverters
• Function and protections of the SMA Multicluster Box

Installation & Commissioning of:

• SMA Sunny Boy PV inverter
• SMA Sunny Island Battery inverter

A Phocos or IMEON All in One Hybrid inverter (Hands On)