The Enphase solution enabled Wattco to install 13 solar carports on Westland Infra parking lot in Poeldijk. Solar made a company green dream come true. Westland Infra can now offer about 4,000 recharges a year, powering electric cars with 100% sustainable and self-generated clean energy.

Powering Cars with Solar PV
Over the past years, Westland Infra, the regional network operator for Central Delfland and Westland, has become an icon in the landscape of network companies, popular for its market development for smart electricity and its great sensitivity towards business sustainability. At Westland Infra, for instance, company cars comply with one essential requirement, that is not aesthetics or speed capacity, it’s environmental consciousness: they must be electric. However, the company wanted to go further. To offset usage, and keep with its theme of sustainability, they began investigating solar energy as the greenest possible way to charge their electric fleet and also allow visitors to charge their cars.

When they turned to Wattco, a solar business founded in 2007 by Vincent van Daalen, the company had just an idea in mind. Vincent, who was new in the “green mobility arena” but has never stepped back to an environmental/green challenge, decided it was bread he could get his teeth into with success.
What Vincent was indeed not doubtful about was the inverter technology to use.

“We even didn’t consider string inverters. Enphase microinverters clearly stood out for an application like this carport, they were crucial in avoiding all complexity issues.”

Safe and Performant: An Enphase Standard
Enphase played a pivotal role in this project in a number of ways. First, the microinverters meet space and aesthetic requirements. Traditional inverters would take up too much room beneath the carport and devalue its aesthetic appearance. The compact Enphase M215 microinverters, 172 x 164 x 25 mm in size only, were the perfect fit for the canopy. Second, by removing high voltage DC from the equation, Wattco was able to reduce time, money and effort on what could have been an intricate electrical design. Not only. A parking lot is a high-traffic area where safety is paramount for PV arrays. Enphase provides lower fire risks with an all-AC system. The Enphase System offered other advantages. Westland solar carports are located in an urban environment, where solar panels are frequently affected by shade, dust, and debris.

But this is not an issue with Enphase microinverters. Connected in parallel, they allow each solar panel to operate independently and the result was an 8% increase in energy production. “Enphase’s M215 microinverter enables us to offer a more efficient solar carport and better performance”, Vincent
concluded. Wattco solar station is designed to do more than simply producing energy from the sun and being able to recharge electric cars, and the benefits are not just about melting fuel expenses away. When not charging vehicles, the canopy can send the power to the grid generating additional  income. One green carport at a time, Enphase technology and Wattco innovative vision are pioneering sustainable mobility.

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