Are you Ready to Achieve Compliance of California Rule 21 Reactive Power Priority Requirement?
Safeguard Your Commercial Portfolio and Get Peace of Mind With SMA
You may know that SMA is one of the most trusted providers of plant-wide O&M services worldwide, but did you know the company also provides commercial O&M services?
Part 3: With SMA, Users Stay One Step Ahead in the Integration of PV Plants
In part two of our three-part series, we covered the support features that our Sunny Tripower three-phase inverters and Sunny Boy single-phase inverters have that implement proactive responses to grid requirements. Frequency Ride-Through and Voltage Ride-Through in particular are crucial for the definition of operation ranges of the inverters and the expected response for different levels of anomaly in the voltage or natural frequency of the grid.
SMA, Top Rated O&M Vendor in North America
SMA is the top O&M supplier in North America in the inverter-based provider category.
SMA Inverter First to Achieve 1500V, UL 62109-1 Certification
SMA Inverters Help California Farm to Save on Costly Irrigation

R.A. Sano Farms, located in the heart of California’s Central Valley, is a large farm that grows tomatoes and a variety of other row crops.
Farm owner Alan Sano has always faced a challenge because tomatoes require large amounts of watering, and in a place where surface water is limited, he had to use groundwater from wells on the farm to irrigate his crops. This is extremely costly because pumping from wells requires a great deal of electricity.
To offset those costs, Sano turned to JKB Energy, a tried-and-true expert for agricultural and commercial projects, to install two 750 kW fixed ground-mount systems for his irrigation wells. JKB used two different sites to take advantage of existing utility transformers and install the maximum solar capacity on each one – thus avoiding significant upgrade costs for Sano’s farm.
Both sites combine for a 1,500 kW system that saves R.A. Sano Farms nearly $361,000 per year. The system will also offset more than 93 million pounds of CO2 over the next 25 years.
JKB Energy used 28 SMA Sunny Tripower inverters for the system, which are the ideal inverters for flexible, efficient installations.
“We value long-term business relationships and reliable products. SMA is the clear industry leader on both of these points, and they’ve been a terrific partner over the years. They have the history and reputation to back up their product claims and services,” said Chad Cummings, Director of Sales & Marketing for JKB Energy.
JKB Energy has been a long-valued partner to SMA, incorporating effective designs using the Sunny Tripower line of inverters for agriculture-related installations.
We are glad that SMA inverters are helping R.A. Sano Farms save on its electricity bills and focus more on farming.
Tested and True: SMA Inverters Deliver Quality & Safety
When it comes to choosing an inverter, quality and safety are essential. These two factors work together to ensure maximum efficiency and sustainability for your projects. Here at SMA, we continuously put our products to the test to ensure they meet the highest quality and safety standards. We build products you can trust.
Why should this matter to you? With proven quality and safety, your PV investment will be protected from major risk factors, including:
- Loss of power output: We tested our inverters against our competitor’s product, and results showed that the other inverter lost power output even in normal ambient temperatures.
- High maintenance costs: The poor AC:DC ratios of other inverters lead to higher costs for installation, operations and maintenance over the life of a PV system.
- Reduced component life: A passive cooling temperature management strategy dramatically reduces power output, lessening the life of a PV component by 75 percent.
- IT security issues: Cloud-based, remote management systems are a great way to monitor and control your PV system – but not every cloud management system is safe or secure.
- Legal trouble: Some inverters out there have EMI values more than 10 times what is legally allowed, which is grounds for unwanted legal attention.
Visit solar-trust.com to learn more.
SMA Test Center: The World in a Lab [Video]
More is expected of them than of others: SMA solar inverters must work perfectly for many years. No matter in which country, in which climate, or to which power network they are connected.
Tech Tip (Spanish): Sunny Boy 5.0/6.0-US Secure Power Supply Installation
Check out our latest video in which technical training specialist Alejandro Avellaneda shows how to install Secure Power Supply with the newest Sunny Boy 5.0/6.0-US. Installing SPS with these inverters will ensure that grid-tied systems have daytime power in the event of a grid outage. Be sure to check back regularly for more Spanish language tech tips and blog posts – we will offer more content in Spanish in the coming weeks and months!
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