SACE Emax 2/E9

Performance and reliability for renewables up to 900Vac

The world of renewable energy is evolving rapidly and leading major changes in electrical power distribution trends. This causes an increased focus on:

Power continuity for critical loads and the best performance, even at high altitudes
Optimized and fast maintenance
Minimized device footprint

To fulfill these needs SACE Emax 2/E9 has been launched:

A smart, plug-and-play architecture makes Emax 2/E9 easy to use. With the best performance up to 900 V of any device on the market, Emax 2/E9 is ready to control and protect all applications with voltages over 690 V and in altitude.
Emax 2/E9 all-in-one is the first smart circuit breaker that enables direct communication with the new energy management cloud-computing platform ABB Ability™ Electrical Distribution Control System.
Emax 2/E9 all-in-one is the most compact circuit breaker on the market. It offers the highest performance in the smallest space. Its compact dimensions allow the size of switchboards to be reduced by up to 30 percent, compared to a standard solution.

Applications

Wind power

Solar power

Altitude

Wind turbines

Wind systems expect to see an average increase of 68 GW/year, reaching 810 GW of installed power by 2022. Wind energy technology has improved, increasing system efficiency and performance by increasing the size of wind turbines and fitting them with longer blades, taller towers and more powerful generators. This increase in performance leads to the utilization of 900 V systems. A major cost in a wind project is the grid connection, including transformers. Increasing the generated voltage to 900 V represents a 23% saving in copper windings in the transformer.

Solar plants

Solar systems have been the fastest-growing source of new energy worldwide in the last decade. The global solar market expects a growth of 14 percent (113 GW) in 2018 for new installations. Solar energy technology has also improved, with better efficiency and performance contributing to the goal of increasing power density to utilize 800 VAC. As with wind, a major cost with solar is the grid connection. Increasing the voltage to 800 V represents a 14% saving in copper windings in the transformer, due to the reduction in the current that flows through it.

High altitude

Many renewable energy systems are being built at higher altitudes than ever before. The benefit of building at high altitude is the fast, stable and constant wind that is found there, which delivers higher and more stable energy production. Above 2,000 m above sea level, the properties of the atmosphere in terms of composition, dielectric capacitance, cooling power and pressure can vary and, therefore, the specification of the circuit breakers is subject to derating, which can be quantified as a variation in maximum rated service voltage and rated uninterrupted current. For this reason, achieving 900 V levels became vital to maintain the best performance, even at high altitudes.