National Semiconductor enters photovoltaic market

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6 August 2008 News

Building on its offering of power management and energy-efficient products, National Semiconductor has entered the photovoltaic market with new technology designed to increase the overall energy output of solar electric power generating systems. National’s SolarMagic technology extracts high power efficiency from each photovoltaic panel, even when some panels in the array are compromised by shading, debris or inherent panel-to-panel mismatch.

Today's solar installations are disproportionately impacted by non-uniformities, caused by shading, panel mismatches or dirt accumulation. For example, a small amount of shading in the array can cut the energy harvest of a system in half. This significantly limits the energy output, design and location of typical residential solar installations. Shading conditions can even invalidate local utility and governmental incentives, making certain installations cost-prohibitive. SolarMagic technology is said to recoup up to 50% of the lost energy, thereby minimising the economic impact of shading and other real-world conditions.

SolarMagic technology is compatible with today's solar architectures regardless of the underlying solar cell technology. National has entered field trials with REgrid Power, one of the largest solar installers in California.

"We are impressed with National's SolarMagic technology in our field trials and have seen a significant performance improvement in our solar installation," said Tom McCalmont, president and chief executive officer of REgrid Power and founder and executive chairman of SolarTech, a Silicon Valley consortium. "We have observed energy output improvements of up to 44% during shaded conditions and 12% overall versus the same system running without SolarMagic technology."

Several additional solar companies are slated to join the field trials over the next several months, and National will expand field trials to include installers in other countries with high adoption rates of solar. Later this year, National plans to introduce SolarMagic products for solar installers and system providers to include in their installations.

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