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Tuesday, July 28, 2009

KACO's Net Zero Emissions Manufacturing


KACO has for a long while been stressing the importance of high quality manufacturing processes in the production of our inverters. Now we'd like to showcase the tireless dedication of our German management and owner to the principles of carbon reduction and sustainable manufacturing techniques. KACO has been a leader in the PV inverter field for many years and as an industry leader has found it necessary to provide guidance to other manufacturers that have not yet realized that in the business of solar according to KACO president Ralf Hofmann

"it's not just about what you do - but how you do it"

KACO has redesigned all of the manufaturing facilities to ensure proper implementation of sustainability oriented manufacturing principles. All manufacturing takes place in Germany, where we have direct control over the environmental impact of our operations. The president of KACO has commented that it is of utmost importance to him and to the company that KACO provide clean energy producing products made from clean energy.

The employees at KACO in Germany are encouraged to ride public transportation whenever possible and are given free trai
n tickets for personal use if they ride public transportation on business trips. The group has been given a fleet of bicycles and small electric cars to travel between our separated facilities, located within the same town. Tree planting days near the factories are common place to help capture local CO2 emissions.


Components for the inverters are sourced from the most environmentally ethical of business partners. KACO insists on using PV and a combined heat and power facility to provide the warm water and the electricity they consume. KACO uses no fossil fuel or nuclear generated energy to make their inverters. The onsite PV system now generate over 350,000 kWh of electricity annually.


This has made KACO one of the few manufacturers on the planet that can rightly claim a net zero carbon footprint for their business operations.

KACO US operates out of San Francisco's Presidio near the Golden Gate bridge and is officially a "San Francisco Green Certified Business". After facility tours and many weeks of collaboration with SF Environment our office is now proven to be one of the greenest in the Bay Area.


We've also brought online a 22kW system on the Grass Valley facility using four of our 3601xi inverters, a 1502xi inverter and two of our 2502xi inverters. We are now producing solar energy with KACO inverters on our own facility. This is something that KACO US is extremely happy to share with you and we hope that you will share this with your partners and friends.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Intersolar 2009

We'd like to thank everybody who visited our booth at Intersolar!

This was a very special show for us, since we've showed our cutting edge residential 02xi-series as well as our XP100 which is a 100kw commercial inverter.

But in the end all the visitors made this event so awesome!
This industry is moving forward into a bright future with all these interesting people involved.

We are so looking forward to see all of you again as soon as possible.

Whenever you have questions, ideas & requests, please let us know anytime! We very much appreciate it!

Also, check out our new and improved website and let us know how you like it:


Wednesday, July 1, 2009

KACO's magic cube

Regardless of our joy about the continuously increasing share of photovoltaics in the energy mix of numerous countries, there is a simple fact that we should keep in mind:
A great part of the human popul
ation has to live without and will never receive a public energy grid; one to two billion people have to live without electricity altogether.
Therefore it is only logical for KACO to strengthen its commitment in the field of off-grid energy supply. The "re Cube" has been designed specifically for the use in regions whose infrastructure does not allow the development of public grids.


It constitutes a mobile power supply unit, which - in contrast to other common systems - works without diesel blocks and is fully (100%) based on renewable energy sources. Using a 1.3kW PV generator, it converts sunlight into current and subsequently stores it in a battery bank.
The system is supported by a wind generator, which compensates for the lack of solar energy at nighttime or during months of reduced solar radiation. The "heart" of the system is a KACO K 3000 off-grid inverter, capable of providing short-term peak power of 9kW.

Typical weaknesses of the off-grid concept have been eliminated with a special focus on providing a turnkey system that is perfectly adapted to our customers' requirements.
The implementation of stand-alone systems was unsuccessful in many cases because components were just "put together", did not match, or quite simply, weren't compatible. Decentralized energy supplies are more difficult to plan, construct and operate as compared to exclusively grid-tied systems. Therefore it seems to make a lot of sense to adapt a system to customer requirements and make it available to them as a fully configured unit:

plug-and-play

On-site installation does not necessarily call for skilled electricians - equipped with a screwdriver, a pair of pliers and a wrench, two people can set up a fully functional "re Cube" within just a few hours.
The "re Cube" is available in different versions, which are individually adapted to customers' needs. A prototype is currently being subjected to performance testing under real-life conditions in North Iraq.