Ok we are here together with Roy from Midnite Solar at Solar Power International
2016.
Really is probably one of the most exciting booths we've been to for the whole show.
Really neat stuff.
It's got the retro look, B-17 bomber in the back, and probably the most interesting inverter
system that we've seen yet.
So I'll let Roy talk about it and tell us what's coming down the road from Midnite.
Well basically this is the game changing battery based inverter power system.
So really we are going to have to stop calling it an inverter and call it a power system,
because it is integrated.
We have here our inverter modules, our charge controller modules, all in the same system.
So when you purchase this, you get this section over here that has your over current protection,
your means of disconnect, as well as your AC inputs, and a bypass assembly here, for
bypassing the AC for servicing purposes, which you'll probably never need because of a feature
I'll describe here in a bit.
You've got your monitoring equipment here, and you've got your computer controller here
that ties everything together and communicates.
So what we have here are two charge controllers in this, and three inverter modules.
Each inverter module is 2kW capacity.
The 200V charge controller module can do about 5kW, the 600V can do about 8kW.
So more than likely you'll only have the one charge controller which leaves four open slots
for future expansion to go all the way up to 8kW.
If you don't need the charge controller, you can put five 2kW inverter modules in here,
and it is a 10kW inverter.
And you can stack up to four of these units for a total of 40kW, or any other combination
thereof with the charge controllers.
Now here's the cool part.
If you want to add a module, or you want to repair a module, you pull this out, it's hot-swappable.
There you go.
It's touch safe here, it's touch safe here.
And if you want to send this in, that's fine, but this does not shut down in the meantime,
you have less power, but you still have power.
You are not down for the count.
The homeowner can put this in, it's very easy to plug in, hot-swappable, powers right up,
and you are done.
Now Roy, I heard that there's interesting blaks that you can put in, if you don't have
to buy all of the inverters at once.
Is that true?
There are some very interesting blanks.
What we have here are pictures of nose art from various WWII aircraft.
So when you pull this out, even though there is a cover, there are ventilation ports that
you would like to cover up, simply because you don't want to mess up the ventilation
in here.
So these would screw into place here.
For those of you who don't appreciate the nose art from WWII planes, we will have the
black blank cover with just the Midnite logo on it.
So you'll have that option.
So it's really fitting with the retro B-17 look and feel.
Yes, exactly.
I believe there are 80 cards to the set, and they will be collectibles, and you can mix
and match, and collect the whole set of 80.
Like I said, very easy to put this back in.
I don't know if you can come around to the side or not, but over here in the wiring compartment,
we actually have a bomb bay light that will turn on for wiring.
And this is powered by an on-board battery, so that you have light well before you get
the rest of the system wired up.
And very very nice.
Lots of room for the wiring, it's accessible from the top and the side, you can actually
put two hands in there to get your wiring done.
That's a game changer all by its self.
That's very cool.
And what about, what's going on on top?
Looks like there are lightning arrestors up top.
Yes it's fully protected with surge arrestors, in this case you have four surge
arrestors that will cover all four channels that are in here, your AC channels, your PV
channels, and so forth.
So lightning arrestor all in here.
This saves a lot of wiring.
If any installers are out there, that wire these things, you know, just having these
charge controllers integrated into this system, saves you a ton of wiring.
Not to mention the fact that it's expandable and changable over time, so your system can
grow according to your customers' needs.
Now this module here, if we can just get a little bit closer to this module, you
can switch between the battery amps, the voltage, the state of charge.
That's correct.
So you have a lot of monitoring capability, and this one here is set up for the show,
so it shows all kinds of different things to show the different features.
But here's a cool thing here.
You'll notice that these are blue.
When it's blue, everything is functional, everything is nominal.
When you see a flashing light, it's a warning, or caution, and when it turns red, like down
here, if that was solid red, you have a problem with the module that's letting you know there's
an issue, and that's easily swapped out.
So you have a lot of information available to you, we went with the retro analog look,
I'm kind of an analog guy, I like that.
But the end user could read voltage and current, and if there's any troubleshooting to be done,
or any questions about the system, all of the information is right here at their fingertips.
That's great.
Well thank you Roy.
You guys are always innovating.
It's nice to see this.
It's really interesting stuff.
Every year Midnite Solar's booth is probably the most interesting one to see.
We have a lot of good times doing it too.
It's a lot of fun, thanks.
Thanks very miuch.