This Thursday December 20th, SolPowerPeople welcomes Sol Haroon, Lead Systems Engineer at Suniva, Inc., to present a #SolarMOOC lecture on DC Microgrid Design. Perhaps some day soon, we will find ourselves in a DC Microgrid neighborhood, where all things are DC powered, and adaptors and inverters are a thing of the past. This could become a more common reality in the future- as the solar industry grows, so does the need to manage the clean power that's produced from that beautiful core of nuclear fusion that we call the sun. This includes not just collection of energy, but distribution as well- a growing concern moving forward as solar becomes more prevalent, population grows, and the grid seems ever smaller each day.

Sol Haroon


Imagine a world embracing solar- one where there is no more of that dirty, inefficent process of coal burning which results in "fly ash, bottom ash, and flue-gas desulfurization sludge, that contain mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic, and other heavy metals" (Wikipedia, coal's environmental effects).  Imagine a world with no more worries about the loss of energy due to a conversion from AC to DC, and no more worry about figuring out how to expand the AC utility grid to accomodate this clean and free energy from the sun.  


DC MicrogridSome are saying, perhaps Edison was right... despite his penchant for propaganda as in the War of Currents, we have to give him quite a lot of credit.  It turns out many of us are becoming DC-worshippers, after all. 

As the solar industry evolves each new theory, application, and technological advancement brings us one step closer to a shared goal of sustainability.  We must continue to look at this goal and ask ourselves, what can we do now to be prepared for the future of this rapidly growing industry and the disturbing reality of global warming?   

As stated by Sol Haroon, "Direct Current (DC) is making a comeback. Appliances today that do not involve compressors or motors are often semiconductor-based which natively run DC.  This includes modern-day solid state lighting (LED) that are increasingly lighting up more buildings. A microgrid is an independent system that supplies power for a specific entity such as a residence, building, or commercial infrastructure. Specifically, a DC microgrid has the ability to store power; the key to a microgrid is that it represents a decentralized form of power that naturally can be fed by renewable energy sources such as Photovoltaics. In short, enable distributed power sources to feed power loads that are a natural fit. According to the Electric Power Research Group, electronic data centers powered by DC microgrids are 20% more efficient than the best AC systems, and up to 30% more efficient than most AC systems. A well designed DC microgrid system can coexist with a standard AC system powering the devices that require the appropriate current type where it makes sense economically and for efficiency."

This presentation will review in detail the workings of a DC microgrid system and will present some examples that the author himself has worked on.

Sol Haroon (sol@suniva.com) has 20 years of experience in electronics engineering design, system architecture and leading teams. Currently, he is engaged as a lead systems engineer at Suniva addressing client needs around the world both grid-tie and off-grid PV applications. Prior to that, he was a systems team lead at ADVA Optical responsible for architecting microchips for high speed data networking. Sol has over 10 years of experience in sustainable energy including direct personal experience with net-zero housing design (passive techniques, solar thermal, and solar photovoltaics) and electric vehicle design. He has also currently partnered with Oakridge National Labs and Southface Energy Institute for a special nation-wide program to retrofit houses for energy efficiency with the aim of 30% energy reduction. He has been published in trade journals such as PV Magazine, featured on NREL’s on-line webinars, and interviewed on the radio in Atlanta on sustainable living. 

 Thursday night, Sol Haroon, Lead Systems Engineer at Suniva, will take the #SolarMOOC stage to present a lecture on one method of problem solving that is becoming more and more popular: DC Microgrids.

To receive an invitation to this Solar Massive Open Online Course lecture and become part of the free internationally connected learning platform called the #SolarMOOC- Join Here.  

To attend this lecture only, register and join here (the password which you will need to join is 9999!).