The Italian government has imposed strict limits on the construction of photovoltaic systems on open land. Except for agri-PV, such installations are now completely banned on arable land. Industrial roofs provide an alternative. Project developer EPC Elettronica Italia in the province of Lecce, Apulia, has demonstrated how this can be done, though on a smaller scale than ground-mounted systems.
9,000 square metres built on
The company has installed a one megawatt solar generator on the roof of a former tobacco processing plant. The modules are mounted on the old factory roof, which spans 9,000 square metres. With optimal solar exposure and no shading, the company can maximise yield at this site. The southern Italian region of Apulia also benefits from some of the highest irradiation levels per square metre on the Apennine peninsula.
20 inverters installed
EPC also achieves its high output by using bifacial modules. These feed the solar power into 20 Piko CI inverters from Kostal Solar Elektrik. The commercial inverters from the manufacturer based in Hagen, Westphalia, each have an output power of 50 kilowatts. “The bifacial modules had to be connected to inverters that are capable of handling a very high current: One of the special features of Kostal’s devices is that they support currents of up to 18 amps, making them suitable for this type of installation,” explains Paolo Melandri, Field Marketing Engineer at Kostal. “In addition, the type of devices used also allowed us to optimise the configuration of the strings.”
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Practical test of the flexibility of the inverters
The plant in Apulia was one of the first photovoltaic systems in Italy to be installed with such a large number of inverters from the Piko CI series. “For us, this was a practical test of the flexibility of our inverters, as they are rarely used in such a large number of systems with such a high output,” says Riccardo Frassanito, Service Manager at Kostal. “It also confirmed the ability of our products to easily manage data transmission and the interaction between the various devices. This ensures efficient monitoring, even with such a large number of installed devices.”
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1.41 gigawatt hours of solar power per year
The bifacial modules ensure a high yield. The planners expect the generator to supply around 1.41 gigawatt hours of clean electricity each year. All energy generated is fed into the grid and sold through an electricity trader, which has entered into a purchase agreement with EPC for the solar power produced. (su/hcn)
