A man who’s very much at the heart of the global PV revolution, Lee Gordon is Morningstar’s inspirational President and CEO. And while the company is already world-leading supplier of photovoltaic controllers and inverters he has his mind set on not just being the biggest – but on being the best…
PES: Welcome back to the magazine. How has business been since we last spoke? Many of your contemporaries speak of the market ‘turning the corner’; would you agree?
Lee Gordon: I am happy to say that Morningstar’s business has been good this year. Of course, Morningstar is in the off-grid PV market, and that market has not experienced the ups and downs and severe margins pressures seen in the on-grid PV market. The off-grid market does not require subsidies to justify the economics of installing PV. As such, we never really had a ‘corner to turn’ this year. Rather, the off-grid market continues its steady growth as it has for the past 30+ years.
PES: We note that you’re about to launch a couple of new products at Solar Power International 2013 (SPI). Would you care to outline what they are and how they will benefit the industry?
LG: This year at SPI, Morningstar is launching our TriStar MPPT 600V controller and our Ground Fault Protection Device (GFPD). Both of these products will provide solid benefits to the PV industry.
The TriStar MPPT 600V controller is a new addition to our world-leading TriStar MPPT controller family, which was first introduced in 2009 and has since gone on to become the MPPT controller of choice for large off-grid applications. Our new 600-volt version uses Morningstar’s TrakStar maximum power point tracking (MPPT) technology and provides for a PV array input voltage of up to 600-volts. Much like in the on-grid market, these higher PV voltage strings simplify installation and reduce overall system costs.
Morningstar’s Ground Fault Protection Device provides a superior solution to ground fault protection in off-grid and on-grid PV systems, thus improving safety and design flexibility. When a ground fault is detected, our GFPD breaks the circuit on both the positive and the negative legs and ensures interruption of the ground fault current better than other solutions on the market.
PES: What is your target market for these products (have you identified a gap in the market)?
LG: Morningstar has identified four different target markets for our TriStar MPPT 600V controller:
Off-grid PV systems that could benefit from using PV arrays greater than 150-volts, particularly with installations that have long wire runs from the array to the controller
New installations of on-grid PV systems with battery back-up, where high voltage PV will provide better efficiency
Retrofit grid-tie PV systems with battery backup, avoiding the cost of re-wiring the existing high voltage PV when adding battery back-up
