National Semiconductor unveils its SolarMagic

National Semiconductor has become the latest IT firm to try and break into the burgeoning renewable energy market, unveiling a chipset specifically designed for installation within solar panels.

The computer chip manufacturer said its new SolarMagic SM3320 chipset optimises the power produced by solar arrays by correcting mismatches in power output between different modules.

Solar arrays can often see their overall power out reduced thanks to poorly integrated solar panels. This can occur thanks to mismatched power-conducting strings, incorrectly oriented arrays, shading, and aging of photovoltaic cells.

"With the system balanced both for the system inverter and every string, each contributor to energy harvest is able to deliver the most energy possible," National Semiconductor said.

The chipset also includes a monitoring and management capability, that enables data on solar energy production to be fed directly from modules to an online portal. The portal, called MyPVData, gives solar panel owners access to operational data across multiple sites. They can then analyse output across daily, weekly, and monthly baselines.

National Semiconductor said that operators would also be able to set notification alerts that allow for the solar module to be automatically or manually corrected whenever inefficiencies become evident.

The company reckons that the chipset could help to recoup up to 71 per cent of the power lost due to mismatches regardless of photovoltaic cell technology that is being used. It added that it is now embedding SolarMagic directly into junction boxes, which are already to be found on all solar panels.

The new technology could provide an alternative to micro-inverters, which a number of manufacturers are currently presenting as solution to the problem of mismatched solar panels.

Traditionally, DC energy from solar panels is converted into AC electricity using a centralised inversion system. However, this creates inefficiencies, because power is delivered serially, meaning that all arrays rely on the weakest array in the link. Micro-inverters aim to solve the problem by converting the power from each individual colar panel to AC, essentially making each solar panel in an array independent in terms of energy production and ensuring that output from one panel will not be affected by shade on another.