One of the Isle of Wight’s largest solar power plants near Newport is completed. The Isle of Wight, located off the southern coast of Britain, has few conventional power plants and also receives its electricity from the main land. So the new solar power plant will make a valuable contribution in supplying the electricity grid on the island.
The ground mount installation with an output of 1.6 MWp consists of 80 strings with 88 solar modules each. Each string is equipped with a SunMaster CS20 inverter from Mastervolt. This makes the plant one of the largest systems with string inverters in Britain.
“The Isle of Wight has long been an important location for Mastervolt: Many of the yachts cruising the magnificent sailing resorts around the island use our independent power supply systems. After all, Mastervolt is the global market leader for these systems. Being able to implement our largest British photovoltaic project to date on the Isle of Wight makes us particularly proud,” says David Craig, General Manager, Mastervolt UK and Ireland.
The solar power plant has its own 33,000V transformer for grid feed-in. The plant was planned and constructed with Mastervolt’s support. Even though plants of this size often use central inverters, the plant owner opted for string inverters to provide high availability and redundancy in the design. This decision was driven by the high efficiency of the SunMaster CS20, the IP65 housing for weather-resistant open-air mounting and its suitability for the LDK solar modules used.
About the Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is an island off the South coast of England. The popular holiday destination boasts scenic hiking paths and one of the world’s most famous sailing resorts off the city of Cowes. Additionally, the Isle of Wight Festival attracts more than 50,000 visitors every year.
About Mastervolt
Headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Mastervolt International BV has been specialising in the development and production of inverters and grid-independent power supply systems for solar, marine and automotive applications since 1993. Mastervolt has seven offices across Europe, the United States and Asia, and sells its products in more than 60 countries. From January 2011, Mastervolt became a subsidiary of Actuant, a globally operating technology consortium.