Trina Solar, one of the world’s three largest solar manufacturers, announced on Thursday the launch in Australia of a new high-efficiency solar panel, the Vertex S, which the company believes will be ideal for Australian conditions and support the country’s growing rooftop solar market.
Billed as being technologically advanced and reliable, with a higher power density, Trina Solar’s Vertex S “is ideal for Australia” and will be pitched at residential customers as well as small-to-medium enterprises in the commercial and industrial market.
Available in Australia from April across all states and territories, the Vertex S incorporates Trina Solar’s new technologies found its high-power Vertex panels used in utility-scale projects.
However, the new Vertex S panels will be smaller and lighter, perfect for rooftop installation, weighing in at 21-kilograms and measuring in at 1.75-metres long and 1.09-metres wide.
The Vertex S will be introduced into Australia in several power sizes to best meet the needs of Australian customers.
“We have a 400W Vertex S module, a power output that maximizes the amount of Federal subsidies you qualify for,” said Govind Kant, senior country sales manager at Trina Solar.
“The Federal subsidies are for solar systems up to 100kW.” A 100kW system comprises of 250 panels at 400W each. “The typical residential system is 6.6kW, so we have a 390W Vertex S panel available,” Kant explained.
With a maximum power efficiency of 21.1% thanks to new technologies including larger size wafers which are 210mm in diameter, Trina Solar’s Vertex series also utilises new packing technologies minimising the space between each cell, further improving efficiency.
“There was unprecedented growth in the residential market,” said Kant. “More people were staying and working at home, so they were using more electricity.
Australians really felt the impact of higher electricity prices and responded by opting to install rooftop solar to mitigate that.
“The trend in Australia is that consumers are opting for more powerful systems, so we believe Vertex S will be very popular as it offers a higher power density,” Kant added.
The Vertex S is designed to be used in very hot and humid conditions and has also been rated for snow load of 6,000 pascals and wind load rated for 4,000 pascals.
Vertex S panels comes with a 15-year warranty as standard that can be extended to 25 years upon request and evaluation.
