The Isle of Wight has benefited from the installation of a 1.6MW solar park near Newport, one of the largest power plants on the island.
The ground-mounted solar PV installation comprises of over 7,000 LDK solar modules arranged in 80 strings to make up an output of 1.6MWp. The new solar power plant is expected to make a significant carbon-free contribution to the isle’s electricity grid as the small island has limited energy infrastructure and relies heavily on receiving electricity from the main land.
Each string is equipped with Mastervolt’s SunMaster CS20 inverter, making the plant one of the largest systems with string inverters in Britain. The solar power plant has its own 33,000V transformer to enable the electricity to be fed into the grid. Although plants of this size often use central inverters, the plant owner opted for string inverters to provide high availability and redundancy in the design.
“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.
