October 1st, 2020 by Zachary Shahan
China’s largest solar-plus-storage project has been connected to the grid. How big is it — 500 megawatts (MW)? 700 MW? 1,100 MW? Nope, we’re in 2020 — it’s 2,200 MW (2.2 GW).
Sungrow, the #1 suppliers of inverters for renewable energy projects, shared the news of the new record. Along with Huanghe Hydropower Development, Sungrow had a big hand in the project.
Alongside the massive 2.2 GW solar PV park, there’s a 202.86 MW/202.86 MWh energy storage plant. Getting all of that electricity out of the vicinity and onto the broader grid presents its own challenges, and that’s where a 800kV ultra-high voltage power line comes in.
“Sungrow offers its PV and energy storage portfolio coming with an embedded sub-array energy management function that can be used to control the output of solar and storage, allowing for improved accuracy of solar generation forecasts,” the company writes. “The flexibly-built microgrid system with Sungrow PV and energy storage system can supply electricity in the early construction period, making it one of the fastest completed renewable energy projects with a construction duration of over 4 months.”
Sungrow claims to be “the world’s most bankable inverter brand,” and it backs that claim up with a stunning 120+ GW worth of the tech installed worldwide. The company, founded by university professor Cao Renxian, says it has the “largest dedicated R&D team in the industry.” Furthermore, it offers more than solar PV inverters and related tech. It also sells energy storage systems of all sizes — for utility-scale, commercial, and residential use — and it helps build floating solar PV power plants. The company has been around since 1997, when I was still in high school! That’s the extreme early days for modern solar power.
That 120+ GW network of solar PV systems using Sungrow inverters spans more than 120 countries, and it gives the company a market share of more than 15% worldwide.
As solar tech keeps improving and coming down in price, new solar records keep being set. Here are a few others from this year:
- Elon Musk Explains Why Tesla Solar Power Reaches Record Low In USA
- New Record-Low Solar Price Bid — 1.3¢/kWh
- Solar PV Panels Were 12× More Expensive In 2010, 459× More Expensive In 1977
- Solar Power Equaled 37% Of New US Power Capacity In 1st Half Of 2020
- India’s Largest Building Integrated Vertical Solar System & The Road Ahead
- Six Flags Discovery Kingdom To Be 80% Powered By Solar Carport
- USA’s First 100% Solar Airport Comes Up At Chattanooga, In The Heart Of Trump Land
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About the Author
Zachary Shahan is tryin’ to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao.
Zach has long-term investments in NIO [NIO], Tesla [TSLA], and Xpeng [XPEV]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.