Solar Builder highlights APsystems chip-based design

Levelized Cost of Energy — the total cost of a PV system’s installation and maintenance over its lifetime, divided by the amount of power produced – is the industry standard for measuring a PV system’s value.

Individual components like microinverters are key to the formula.

In its new story “LCOE Heroes: How inverters drive down PV levelized cost of energy,” Solar Builder magazine considers how the proprietary APsystems chip-based design means better long-term value for installers and end buyers.

It all starts with the Field Programmable Gate Array chip, which does so much of the microinverter’s work that each APsystems unit can be built with about 30 percent fewer discrete components than other brands.

That means savings at the supply and manufacturing level that cascade into real savings for customers.

“The FPGA architecture allows multiple, distinct processes to run in parallel on the same chip,” Jason Higginson, senior director of marketing at APsystems, tells the magazine. “This cuts down significantly on the number of internal components. This again is a significant savings at the supply-chain level as fewer components must be sourced to manufacture each unit, while also gaining an increase in reliability.”

Read more on APsystems chip-based microinverter design and its effect on levelized system costs at Solar Builder magazine online.