In times where renewables are capable to cover more than half of Germany’s electrical energy demand, the pressure on cost savings for photovoltaic power production increases steadily.

The increasing demand in renewables induced a temporal overcapacity of PV modules but also lead to a more mature PV market. Nowadays, PV power plants are considered reliable and durable power plants. New concepts in electrical energy distribution and storage facilities further increase the attractiveness of PV systems.

The average solar radiation intensity for most regions in Europe and other continents has been evaluated in great detail. This facilitates the planning and installation of large PV systems considerably. However, in less explored areas around the world the potential of PV is less evident, even though many locations seem to be very well suited for PV plant installations.

And some of these regions might become electrified for the first time. Especially for large PV power plants an on-site assessment of solar radiation conditions has to be made prior to the installation. For such an assessment, measurements of the solar radiation and meteorological quantities have to be done for a quite long time, typically one year.

For solar resource assessments and for other high-demand application requiring solar radiation and meteorological measurement solutions, EKO Instruments provides Solar Monitoring Stations, so-called SMS’s, which are configured according to any requirements in solar applications. The flexible SMS’s can be equipped with all kind of sensors, ranging from small radiation sensors to secondary standard pyranometers and DNI sensors, including sun trackers. They can be expanded with spectral radiometers, compact weather stations, all-sky camera’s, data loggers, etc., all configured and programmed as required by the customer.

The fully turn-key Solar Monitoring Stations are very convenient to use, simple to assemble, and they are more affordable that you might think. Our high-quality production standard, built on Japanese tradition of thorough manufacturing, is completed by an competent after-sales support and a 2 years product warranty.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us for technical information, brochures, and of course an individual discussion of your requirements.

Go to SMS product page 

The new EKO Ami Solar Park is opened!

In March of this year EKO Instruments Co., Ltd. accomplished the construction of the EKO Ami Solar Park in Ami Town of the Ibaragi Prefecture, Japan. The opening ceremony on April 12^th was attended by many guests, including Mr. Fujio Amada who is the mayor of Ami Town and many students of the local primary school.

A total of 3,188 PV panels are installed on about 16,000 square meters, having an electrical power production capacity of approximately 721,000kW. This energy is enough to provide electricity for about 200 households.

The EKO Ami Solar Park was not only built to generate sustainable energy but also to verify and test the performance of PV panels. Currently EKO compares the performance of six different solar panels, including single-crystalline silicon, multi-crystalline silicon and CIS types. The measurements are performed with the new PV monitoring and meteorological observation systems developed by EKO Instruments.

With the Ami Solar Park, EKO strengthens is commitment to more sustainable energy production, to environmental protection and education for the people in Ami Town and the Ibaragi Prefecture.

The new MS-01 and MS-02 handheld solar irradiance meters are the perfect tools for solar photovoltaic (Solar PV) and solar thermal installers to conduct comprehensive solar pv site surveys. The MS-02 also includes a data logging facility with USB interface for data download to a PC. This allows for irradiance and temperature to be recorded at user-defined intervals over a number of hours or days, the collected data can then be downloaded to a PC for analysis of for inclusion in solar installation reports.

These high specification irradiance meters simply and quickly measure irradiance, displaying the information in either W/m2 or BTU/hr-ft2, making them ideal for both solar photovoltaic (Solar PV) and solar thermal applications.

The use of a photovoltaic reference cell, provides a more representative measurement of solar energy and greater accuracy and repeatability compared to irradiance meters which use simple photo diode detectors. The MS-01 and MS-02 irradiance meters both incorporate a display hold feature, which enables the user to easily capture readings in difficult locations.

Both MS-01 and MS-02 can be combined with the MP-01 PV Installation tester. MS-02 features wireless connectivity (solar link) to measure and store real-time irradiance measurements, ambient temperature and PV module temperature measurement results simultaneously while electrical tests being conducted. Results can be downloaded from the MP-01 to PC.

As EKO received many questions from the CPV market to measure the spectral distribution of direct solar radiation. Being aware of the requirements in concentrated photovoltaics, EKO Instruments developed a unique system for the measurement of the direct spectral solar irradiance: the MS-700 DNI.

The GPS Sun tracker based system with the MS-700 spectroradiometer features a precision collimator tube designed according to the DNI-related WMO and ISO norms. While the GPS Sun tracker operates autonomously, the MS-700 DNI can either be controlled by the PC software or a programmable data logger. The new compact collimating tube is available for the MS-700 spectroradiometer. In combination with the MS-700 mounting kit the MS-700 with collimating can be fitted to any STR-Sun tracker.

Go to MS-700 DNI product page