PV Powered wins $2.4 million energy grant

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PV Powered inverters were used at this Williams, Calif. solar installation.

Bend solar inverter-maker PV Powered Inc. will receive a $2.4 million federal grant to further develop technologies that enable solar energy systems to communicate with power utilities.

The funds come from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., which on Tuesday said it is investing $8.5 million in four projects that have reached the third stage of the federal Solar Energy Grid Integration Systems program.

The two-year-old program is aimed at improving the reliability of the nation’s electrical grid to accommodate increasing amounts of solar energy development.

As part of the program, PV Powered will partner with Portland General Electric Co. (NYSE: POR), South Dakota-based Northern Plains Power Technologies and Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories of Pullman, Wash.

The project involves developing next-generation controls and advanced communications technologies to allow distributed photovoltaic energy systems to communicate with utilities.

The other companies to receive investment include:

• • The Florida Solar Energy Center at the University of Central Florida, which received $660,329 for development of a larger inverter system capable of being shared by multiple residential or commercial solar energy systems.
• • Petra Solar South of Plainfield, N.J., which received $2.7 million for development of low-cost, easy-to-install modular inverters.
• • Princeton Power of Princeton, N.J., which received $2.7 million to complete its design for a 100-kilowatt “demand response inverter.”

Each federal grant will be matched more than one-to-one by the contractors involved in the federal program, bringing the total new investment in the four projects to over $20 million.

PV Powered announced in March it would be acquired by Advanced Energy Industries Inc. for $90 million. The deal closed in May.

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