SEMA Announces Speakers for Its 1st Technical Conference and Exhibition

The event will include training courses as well as a technical conference and exhibition. The technical conference will review the reliability issues associated with PV modules based on a new SEMA reliability report written by Robert Schwenke of SciTech Consultants, Kurt Scott of Atlas, and Dr. Dasgupta Das and Professor Patrick McCluskie of the University of CALCE inMaryland. The conference also will feature input from the SEMA membership and various industry research and development groups. The report will be available for free to conference attendees and SEMA members.

Speakers, including Allen Zielnik of Atlas, will review industry programs that  address long-term module reliability implications with a discussion on understanding and determining the reliability of PV modules over their 25-year lifetime.

David Torp of IPC, along with other respected industry experts, will discuss existing and emerging solar standards during the standards  session of the conference. This session also will include a review of gaps in standards as well as the challenges and development of international quality standards. Inverter and microinverter reliability issues and roadmaps/future trends, as well as the INEMI roadmap for PV will be presented by the session's speakers, one of these being Wayne Chang from Pivotry Consultancy. Additionally, PV module manufacturing leaders from Flextronics and Celestica will present module and manufacturing issues.

The outlook for the global solar industry will be discussed by industry experts Paula Mints from Navigant, Philip Heinz from Prismark and Jon Custer-Topai from Custer Consulting. Finally, speakers including Matthew Holzmann from Christopher Assocates will review hazards for modules, including fire, warranty, theft and traceability.
  
In addition to the training courses and technical conferences, there will be an exhibition consisting of many leading companies in the solar industry.

SolarBridge's Pantheon microinverter attains UL certification

SolarBridge Technologies has revealed that its Pantheon microinverter has passed all

necessary tests and has been granted the safety standard for PV inverters: UL 1741

certification by the Canadian Standards Association (CSA). The company claims that this is

the first integrated microinverter that comes with a 25-year warranty to receive such

certification.

The Pantheon microinverter was put through different testing before it was granted UL

certification including a utility-interface requirement under IEEE 1547, environmental

evaluations under UL 1703, temperature cycling, humidity cycling and wet insulation

resistance testing. Additionally, the AC connectors underwent mechanical testing, which took

into account the impact of the system at -35 degrees Celsius.

"These are great milestones for our technology and our company," said Ron Van Dell, president

and CEO for SolarBridge. "These certifications mean that our AC Module System has passed all

the necessary industry safety tests—qualifying the SolarBridge Pantheon as a power

electronics component for any AC module built for North America."