The renewable energy market is growing worldwide, as conventional energy costs rise, and due to the heightened awareness of long term ecological issues. To satisfy this rising demand for ‘green technologies’, Carlo Gavazzi has expanded its energy management portfolio with the addition of the EOS-Array, a unique, modular controller for solar PV installations. The Eos-Array is a combination of modules which perform the complete control of a photovoltaic plant. It is also extremely expandable. The core unit is the VMU-M which performs the local bus management of both measuring units, the VMU-S and the VMU-P, as well as the I/O unit, the VMU-O. The VMU-M assigns the proper local unit address automatically and gathers all the local measurements coming from VMU-S and VMU-P measuring units. The VMU-M can provide, by means of VMU-O modules, two relay outputs to manage alarms and/or external loads (such as a a lighting system, a PV washing system, etc.) and two PV panel temperature inputs. The VMU-S is the DC power measuring unit (generated by PV panel), which features a built-in fuse holder. The VMU-P collects relevant environmental data (through external sensors) such as wind speed, air temperature and sun irradiation. The Eos-ArraySoft is freeware software, which either automatically or manually can download the Eos-Array system memory to the PC, for further PV plant efficiency calculations and alarm analysis. For more information, visit www.GavazziOnline.com.
Leaders relevant to this article: