One of the world’s largest renewable inverter manufacturers, ABB, is surging ahead in the renewable energy industry. They have developed underground cables that can transmit double the power flow making it cheaper to integrate electricity into the grid from distant offshore wind farms. They have also delivered and commissioned Malaysia’s largest solar power plant of 10.25MW’s to their energy grid.

ABB have designed a new high-voltage DC (direct current) cable that can transmit up to 2.6Gw’s of power each – enough to power two million homes or serve the electricity needs of Paris. The underground or undersea cable system will hopefully encourage more offshore renewable investments with less installation costs.

“Germany is installing a lot of offshore wind farms at the moment with a typical capacity of 1 GW. This means for every GW they have to install a separate cable system to the shore,” said Claes Rytoft, ABB’s chief technology officer. “With this technology they have the option to connect two offshore wind farms and only have one cable to the mainland.”

The breakthrough makes it the most powerful subsea connection system in the world.

Malaysia’s largest solar power plant the Amcorp Power Sdn Bhd’s Gemas 10.25MW plant has used ABB’s TRIO three phase inverters to connect to their grid. The solar power plant is around 160kms outside of the capital, Kuala Lumpar, and accounts for approximately 11% of its almost 116MW’s of grid connected solar PV capacity.

In addition, the plant also uses ABB’s Plant Portfolio Manager, which provides a highly interactive dashboard with real-time remote performance monitoring over computer networks (or mobile devices for better) for faster PV plant management.

“Renewable energy, in particular solar, will play an increasingly important role in the energy mix of countries that represent a significant portion of the world’s economic growth for decades to come,” said Pekka Tiitinen, head of ABB’s Discrete Automation and Motion division. “ABB’s portfolio of products, including the inverters we’re delivering here along with our service offering, will ensure that Malaysia has access to clean, green power even as the technologies evolve.”

Malaysia is trying to diversify its energy mix with targets to connect 975MWs (or 5.5%) of renewable energy into the grid by 2015 – this target is expected to double.