Defining the advantages of Indian made Solar On-Grid Inverters 

This article talks about the advantages of having solar on-grid inverters for Solar PV owners and how it impacts the overall repair cost. 

In this era of global climate change which constantly calls for higher usage of eco-friendly and sustainable means of producing electricity, installation of solar panels and inverters for power generation is one of the best ways to contribute towards the betterment of the environment.

A solar inverter is one of the most crucial elements of any Photo Voltaic (PV) solar energy system. If any solar panels become faulty then it can be bypassed and electricity can continue to be produced from rest of the solar panels. But if Inverter fails then there is a major loss in energy generation. Also, the inverter is responsible for synchronisation of Voltage/Frequency with the grid voltage/frequency. So the selection and installation of the inverter is very important.

When installing a solar PV plant, most of the ownership cost is spent upfront. The upfront cost of solar PV plant is 70-75 percent total ownership cost. Once the solar plant is functional there are only small expenses like Panel cleaning and faulty parts replacement. One of the highest O&M expenses of owning the solar PV plant is replacing/repairing the inverters after the warranty period is over. Solar inverters can fail and part replacement/repairs may be necessary. 

Considering that solar plant is expected to have life of 25 years, Rishabh Instruments Pvt. Ltd. envisaged that the solar inverter technology must be owned/ developed within India. Hence, we looked for technology transfer from reputed European companies and we finally acquired the solar inverter technology from GEFRAN SpA (Italy) up to 20kW ratings. On the same platform of GEFRAN, we further developed the higher range inverters up to 100kW and also lower ranges from 3kW to 9kW.

The advantage for the owner of the solar PV plant is that they get very low cost of repairing, as faulty inverters are repaired at component level instead of replacement of the entire PCB. Many imported inverters which have been installed 7-8 years back are now going faulty and their repair costs are exorbitant as all the spare parts are imported from outside India and it is also time consuming, leading to loss in energy generation until the inverter get repaired or is replaced with spare inverter. But with Made in India inverters, where all the design, PCB fabrication, SMT, assembling, testing etc is done in India itself, the end-customer really gets the advantage of low cost of repair and faster services. 

Expertise shared by: Mr. Chetan Sukhwal 

Head-Sales & Marketing (Solar), 

Mobile: +91 78880 28877 / 93424 11534 

Office: +91 253 2202019 Email: chetan.sukhwal@rishabh.co.in