ABC News / AP story on Solar Electric Systems [RE-wrenches]

[Christopher Freitas --- OutBack Power]

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Here is the background on American Power Conversion - from their
website: 

"American Power Conversion, incorporated in March 1981, was founded by
three electronic power engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. At the time, the research and development efforts of these
three men were focused on solar electricity. Over the next few years,
government funding and incentives in the solar arena began to dry up. In
response, APC shifted its focus to power protection, introducing its
first UPS in 1984, the 750." 

>> Those units remain the best engineered inverters on the planet with
all do respect to our current 
>> equipment. Today's inverters have an enormous reliability hurdle to
overcome if they want to be in the same ballpark 
>> as the APCC units. They weren't perfect, but they were about 20 years
ahead of their time. It would be nice to see them 
>> back in PV some day. Too bad they are making too much money making PC
UPSs (American Power Conversion).

Those early APCC inverters were nice - but were hand built by the
engineers at a very subsidized cost and would not be competitively
priced in today's market. People now are very price sensitive - which is
a challenge for all of the inverter manufacturers.  

I actually do like APCC as a company - I also think APCC could build
some killer PV inverters - But it also would probably mean that the
inverters would be built in China or the Philippines like most of their
UPS... Which maybe is inevitable?

Christopher Freitas 
OutBack Power Systems
cfreitas at outbackpower.com
19009 62nd Ave NE 
Arlington WA 98223 USA 
Tel 360 435 6030
Fax 360 435 6019
www.outbackpower.com 

>> Graham,
>> 

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