About PADCON Services

In the years 2002–2006, pho­to­volta­ic sys­tems devel­oped from small roof sys­tems of around 10 kW to larg­er free-field sys­tems of sev­er­al MW. At that time, invert­er tech­nol­o­gy and the avail­able mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems were not real­ly designed for larg­er PV sys­tems.

As a solu­tion to this prob­lem, Pad­con GmbH is found­ed to devel­op cen­tral real-time mon­i­tor­ing so that var­i­ous PV sys­tems can be cen­tral­ly mon­i­tored and con­trolled in real time. The aim is also to pro­duce a cen­tral invert­er that is sig­nif­i­cant­ly more pow­er­ful than the devices avail­able to date while pos­sess­ing exten­sive grid sta­bil­i­sa­tion func­tions.

The first cen­tral invert­er devel­oped and man­u­fac­tured by Pad­con goes into oper­a­tion. At the time, it is the most pow­er­ful invert­er in the world.

Due to increased space require­ments, the com­pa­ny moves to Helm­stadt, where the pro­duc­tion capac­i­ties can be expand­ed.

The cen­tral invert­ers and real-time mon­i­tor­ing go into series pro­duc­tion.

Pad­con con­cludes first coop­er­a­tions with the lead­ing EPC.

The com­pa­ny becomes Belectric’s main sup­pli­er of cen­tral invert­ers and sup­plies mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems to EDF Renew­ables in France.

The new­ly estab­lished con­trol cen­tre mon­i­tors and con­trols more than 200 PV sys­tems in 14 coun­tries. In the mean­time, more than 1 GW of pho­to­volta­ic pow­er is already being mon­i­tored with the Pad­con Mon­i­tor­ing Sys­tem.

Pad­con is devel­op­ing a park reg­u­la­tion to be able to imple­ment grid oper­a­tor require­ments for grid sta­bil­i­sa­tion and to help make solar ener­gy more usable. The mar­ket launch takes place in the same year.

In the first four years, Pad­con has grown con­tin­u­ous­ly to a team that now has more than 100 employ­ees. The com­pa­ny oper­ates world­wide.

As part of an inter­nal research project, the clever minds at Pad­con are able to prove for the first time that solar sys­tems with the help of reac­tive pow­er com­pen­sa­tion can con­tribute not only to mains volt­age reg­u­la­tion dur­ing the day but espe­cial­ly at night and thus to a con­sid­er­able extent to mains sta­bil­i­sa­tion. Der Spiegel reports on this ground­break­ing research result, as does the TV news pro­gram heute Nacht.

2011 is also the year of the devel­op­ment and patent­ing of the Float Con­troller, a com­plete­ly new prod­uct that can shift and con­trol the poten­tial of a solar sys­tem at will. With its help, 1500 VDC sys­tems can be imple­ment­ed in pho­to­volta­ic parks for the first time. At that time there were no PV mod­ules approved for such a high volt­age.

As a result, sev­er­al 100 MW of solar parks with a sys­tem volt­age of 1500V will be realised in coop­er­a­tion with GE. Thanks to the high sys­tem volt­age that is now pos­si­ble, the BOS (Bal­ance of Sys­tem) costs can be sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced.

PADCON cel­e­brates its fifth anniver­sary, and many cel­e­brate along with them: The com­pa­ny now has 100 employ­ees. Just in time for the com­pa­ny anniver­sary, the Float Con­troller comes onto the mar­ket, an inno­v­a­tive, patent­ed device for the recov­ery of PV mod­ules, which show sig­nif­i­cant per­for­mance loss­es due to poten­tial-induced degra­da­tion, and for pre­ven­tive avoid­ance of the PID effect.

PADCON also deliv­ers the world’s first invert­er sta­tion with 1500 volt DC volt­age.

As part of the fur­ther inter­na­tion­al­i­sa­tion of the com­pa­ny, many prod­ucts as well as the entire pro­duc­tion are cer­ti­fied accord­ing to UL stan­dards, thus lay­ing the foun­da­tion for a suc­cess­ful expan­sion into the Amer­i­can PV mar­ket.

Glob­al sales are sig­nif­i­cant­ly expand­ed and the first inter­na­tion­al ser­vice and sales part­ner­ships are estab­lished in India, Israel and the USA in order to be able to bet­ter serve local require­ments.

The Pad­con Float Con­troller proves to be a great suc­cess and the demand for anti-PID solu­tions increas­es rapid­ly.

In order to be able to offer cus­tomers an opti­mal and quick-to-install solu­tion, espe­cial­ly for sys­tems with string invert­ers, PADCON devel­ops and launch­es the Float Con­troller SI.

Our prod­ucts are used in 25 coun­tries across the globe to suc­cess­ful­ly increase the yield and prof­itabil­i­ty of solar sys­tems. In order to pro­vide our cus­tomers with the best pos­si­ble sup­port, we set up ser­vice and sales part­ner­ships in oth­er coun­tries (Spain, Italy, France).

Our suc­cess does not go unno­ticed. Belec­tric GmbH acquires 100% of Pad­con GmbH. Belec­tric is a glob­al leader in the areas of EPC and oper­a­tional man­age­ment of PV sys­tems and a sub­sidiary of Inno­gy SE.

The CI 70 is the world’s first anti-PID solu­tion that can be used in PV sys­tems with volt­ages of up to 1500V DC.

HOCH.REIN takes over the prod­uct seg­ment PID solu­tions / float con­troller togeth­er with the nam­ing rights to PADCON.

The merg­er with the HOCH.REIN Group gives PADCON GmbH access to a large, inter­na­tion­al net­work and indus­try experts with the PID divi­sion.

The sub­ject of PID, espe­cial­ly PID pre­ven­tion, is attract­ing more and more atten­tion with­in the glob­al PV indus­try. Many investors and EPCs are now demand­ing and, from the out­set, installing appro­pri­ate solu­tions in new­ly built pow­er plants to pre­vent yield loss­es caused by PID. The PID pre­ven­tion area accounts for around 25% of annu­al sales.

Joint ven­ture with Time­less Plan­et GmbH and expan­sion of the range of PID ser­vices on the Euro­pean mar­ket. 6 GW equipped with Float Con­trollers in Ger­many, Eng­land, and Spain.

Expan­sion of ser­vices in the areas of main­te­nance, ser­vic­ing, and repow­er­ing of PV sys­tems, stor­age sys­tems, and charg­ing infra­struc­ture.

The Float Con­troller will be pre­sent­ed for the first time at Inter­so­lar North Amer­i­ca as an alter­na­tive to neg­a­tive ground­ing in solar sys­tems with cen­tral invert­ers. Sev­er­al sys­tems in the USA are being equipped with PADCON Float Con­trollers.