SOLARAWARDS2011 WINNERS
high quality and reproducible soldering results with excellent peeling forces due to Somont Soft Touch Soldering. Testing phases can be done more cost effective (no more valuabe production time on the stringer is necessary anymore). Consequently testing phases can be done more intense without any time pressure. It is time saving as the customer does not need to wait to get a stringer in the production for his testing periods. Thus new developments can be introduced on the market faster.
Customer Benefits: The customer benefits are:
Cost effective - no loss of valuable production time / output High quality and reproducible soldering results with excellent peeling forces due to Somont Soft Touch Soldering
Recipe pre-qualification and simulation - all stringer recipes can be pre-tested —> faster material validations are possible
Time saving for the R&D department - no more conflict of interests between R&D and production, no more waiting to get a stringer for testing new materials —> new developments can be introduced much faster on the market than in the past
Flexible - a variety of different materials can be tested without any time pressure, test phases can be done more intense
Easy to handle due to intuitive HMI (same as on Somont stringers) to set up parameters
Space saving - can be set up in any laboratory or development department
Fast reaction time to material changes - innovations on the market can be introduced and tested immediately.
Note from the Judges: Anyone involved in high tech manufacturing knows that the term down time is almost a swear word for facility managers. Whether it is tool maintenance, new tool development or R&D testing, the facility manager faces a balancing act to ensure that the manufacturing continues with as little disruption as possible. As with other aspects of the industry, every little improvement is sought to improve process flow.
Until now R&D departments have been faced with a dilemma when there is a new cell development. Such advances, while welcome require interesting time and tool management to reduce downtime while improving process integrations. When a new development occurs one test that must be carried out is for solderability on the stringer and this traditionally is done on the production line causing the dreaded downtime.
The winner of this award has developed a stand-alone soldering station for solar cells for material testing and qualification under production conditions.
New materials such as cells, ribbons, flux can be tested and verified much faster. This leads to a time and cost reduction for the process as downtime is avoided.
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www.solar-pv-management.com I Issue IX 2011
PV Balance of System Award
Solar-Log
Solar-Log is a complete monitoring system that can work with most inverters available on the market. The system monitors the power production of a PV plant and gathers detailed status information from the inverters through the corresponding inverter protocols. Usually the configuration of monitoring systems requires IT know-how, since a monitoring system is also an IT product.
By means of the inverter-independent Solar-Log system, the installer only has to learn one system to be able to provide a monitoring system for all customers, even those with different inverter installations. There usually still is, however, inverter specific configuration required on site via laptop. To make the local installation easier and to minimize the effort on site, Solar- Log introduced a so called Easy Installation process.
This method makes the installation much easier by doing inverter detection and establishing internet connection to the Solar-Log portal automatically. On site, an installer needs only to connect the data logger to the inverter by data cable and connect the data logger to a router. Once these basic connections have been established, the data logger configuration starts automatically by identifying all connected inverters.
This works even with different manufacturers connected to the Solar-Log. The data logger also establishes the connection to the internet and does an anonymous internet registration. The progress of these steps is indicated by LEDs on the Solar-Log data logger. The installer can then do the final configuration remotely at the office.
Challenge: The advantages of an inverter-independent system are multiple. An installer only needs to learn one single product to provide a monitoring system for all of his customers, even those having different inverters. Nevertheless, the system still requires a certain amount of study. A monitoring system must generally be simple enough to be installed without requiring a great deal of effort. Since a monitoring device is an IT product, a certain amount of IT know-how must usually be available.
The Solar-Log Easy installation, on the other hand, reduces the installation effort of the monitoring device to a minimum, allowing any PV plant installer to install the monitoring device without much training. Additional installation details can then be configured remotely.
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