US firm Enphase Energy Inc. has partnered with MSpectrum, a subsidiary of Manila Electric Company (Meralco), for the distribution of the former’s products to residential and commercial end-users opting to draw their energy needs from solar installations.
In an announcement at its headquarters in California, the American company noted that its Enphase IQ 7™ will be made available in the Philippines through MSpectrum starting in the first quarter of 2021.
The Enphase solar products to be distributed by the Meralco subsidiary shall include microinverters IQ 7, IQ7+™, IQ 7A™ and IQ 7X™; and these shall be “outfitted with Enphase Envoy™ communication gateways,” that will then enable them to be linked to the software monitoring platform of the company; and in the process, this will make per-panel energy monitoring and insights for operations and maintenance easy.
In line with the business tie-up, MSpectrum Chief Operating Officer Robert Pereja noted that the company is enthusiastic about “providing Enphase Energy seventh-generation microinverters in the Philippines.”
For Michael Paul Miranda, managing director of 8AM Engineering Services that will be installing the products, he emphasized that this next-generation technology “will benefit solar customers through its high performance, flexibility, reliability, and most importantly, safety due to rapid shutdown device (RSD)” that are built into the microinverters.
He said the company will be working with Enphase “to revolutionize the solar industry in the Philippines and motivate more Filipinos to shift from traditional to renewable sources of energy.”
Miranda said the American firm’s track record of “quality manufacturing, technology and credibility were some of the major factors for us to join forces with the company.”
He added that for solar installers like their company, they gave weight to the built-in RSD protection, low voltage AC features, the distributed architecture as well as the simple installation process of the Enphase microinverters in patronizing the products.
Dave Ranhoff, chief commercial officer of Enphase Energy expounded that the IQ 7 family of microinverters is leveraging on its “unique software-defined architecture and semiconductor integration for excellent reliability and economies of scale.”
He said the company’s products had been subjected to “rigorous reliability and quality testing regimen with more than an aggregated one million hours of cumulative power-on testing to help ensure exceptional performance under heat, high humidity, salty air and cold.”
Ranhoff added that “the design is compatible with operating in hot, humid and coastal conditions such as those found in the Philippines.”