On Monday, the Colorado-based Advanced Energy Industries announced that one of its companies, PV Powered, has been contracted to carry out development work for stage three of the Solar Energy Grid Integration Systems (SEGIS) project.

Started in 2008, the project is funded by the U.S. Department ofEnergy (DOE) and administered by Sandia National Laboratories. It is aportion of the larger Solar Energy Technologies Program, which aims tomake it easier for utility companies to incorporate solar energy intoutility grids. So far, four projects are included in the SEGIS program:two in New Jersey, one in Florida and one in Oregon.

Vice President of Engineering for PV Powered Steve Hummel sees thecontract as a key component in establishing PV Powered’s leadership indeveloping solar technologies:

“The Stage 3 award represents validation that PV Poweredis on track with delivering solutions aligned with the DOE’s fundamental objective of enabling high-penetration PV. This proactive program hascatalyzed key partnerships that are critical to solving some of thebiggest problems that utilities experience today with renewable energy,so that we can deliver on the enormous promise of solar power.”

PV Powered was chosen because itmanufactures utility-interactive inverters for residental and commerical renewable energy markets. That falls in line with stage three of thisproject: a push to optimize and commercialize the energy harvested byinverters and enable photovoltaic (PV) systems to communicate withutility grids.

Inverter Company Tapped for Solar Energy Grid Project