San Francisco, California, USA – July 12th, 2013 – Jimmy Wang, CEO of Ginlong Technologies and Susanna Huang, Ginlong US Executive are interviewed by Renewable Energy World during Intersolar North America, the most attended solar event.View Video>>
(www.ginlong-usa.com, http://www.ginlong.com)
CHARLIE THURSTON: Hello, This is Charlie Thurston reporting here at Intersolar North America for Renewable Energy World.
We are lucky enough to have Jimmy Wang, the CEO of Ginlong technologies and Susanna Huang, Director of US headquarters (Ginlong US Executive) of the company in Dublin, Ohio. Ginlong is based in Ningbo, China. It is a full portfolio inverter manufacturer. It has been in business for about 10 years. It is the second oldest in China. Here in the SHOW, Ginlong has just unveiled its new hybrid solar wind inverter. Jimmy, can you tell us a little about it?
JIMMY WANG: This is our first time at Intersolar North America. It is a very good show. We are very busy (at our booth). This year, we released a new product which is a hybrid inverter. A hybrid inverter for us is a solar wind hybrid inverter. So it is very unique. We believe it is one of the earliest commercial hybrid inverter in the market.
CHARLIE THURSTON: The size of the inverter is scaled for residential primarily, right?
JIMMY WANG: Yes, it is from 1KW to 20KW.
CHARLIE THURSTON: And what is the price point of this product?
JIMMY WANG: It is variable depending on the volume. Given a reference price for 5KW, it is about $1,500 dollars. Which means, normally you need to have solar inverter for a PV system, wind inverter for a wind system. Now you would only need one single inverter for the hybrid system, which saves you a lot of installation costs and equipment costs etc.
CHARLIE THURSTON: Sounds like a great value. A lot of US buyers though are very concerned about warranties and about the longevity of the product. I understand you have recently sold 10% of equity to the government. Tell us about the way that helps your warranty program.
JIMMY WANG: We recently have secured an investment from an investment company which has a very strong government background. Because nowadays Panel and Inverter companies starte to provide 10 years or 20 years warranty. The problem for the customers is how you can warranty your guarantee. So it is a problem. We are one of the first companies that secured the funding from (an investment) with background from the government, which means we can really warranty our warranty. So that is a great benefit for our customers.
CHARLIE THURSTON: At the time a lot of module makers in China have trouble with insurers. That is a strong statement. The other element of your full service package is your service center in Dublin (Ohio). Tell us about that, Susanna.
SUSANNA HUANG: First of all, thank you for having us here. Dublin (Ohio) is my second home. I have been living there over 10 years. I believe there you can find very good business environment. We are setting up an office to provide marketing, sales and services support. Ginlong is relatively new to the US market although we have the global brand reputation. So we want to promote Ginlong product through very aggressive marketing approach and let people to know our name. On the sales side we try to focus on providing value to our customers and become customers’ partner. On the service side, we think our customers should drive our processes. We listen to customers very carefully and try to provide very responsible service to them. A lot of customers are asking for local services that’s what we can offer. We are in the middle of America and we can reach lot of places very easily.
CHARLIE THURSTON: I haven’t seen your parts diagram yet but I’m sure it will be easy to understand. Jimmy, here in the states, solar is taking off incredibly in California, wind is very popular in other states where solar is not as strong. Tell us about the challenge that you have for inspiring residential consumers to embrace both wind and solar through a hybrid (system)?
JIMMY WANG: Nowadays for renewable usage, solar and wind are the two major resources for the renewable energy production. Normally when you do not have so much solar energy you get a lots of wind in the day time for example. And when you do not have wind then there is a lot of solar (energy). So with a hybrid system, you normally can have more constant power production from your renewable energy installation. It not only benefits home owners to have a constant output from the systems, but also benefits grids to have very constant inputs from the renewable systems, which (inconstant input) now has become a headache for lots of utility companies.
CHARLIE THURSTON: You include in your system a monitoring (device) which can help both home owners and grid operators. Tell us a bit more about the monitoring system
JIMMY WANG: We have a monitoring system which is wireless wifi connected. You can monitor its performance. In another way, you can control an inverter to switch off something, which means it (inverter) is more programmable and more controllable.
CHARLIE THURSTON: The last element of the hybrid system might be desirable is a battery backup. How complicated is connecting a battery backup to your inverter?
JIMMY WANG: The inverter which we design is always user friendly. So it is just plug-in works for a lot of connections and so it fairly easy for customers to get to use it.
CHARLIE THURSTON: You are engineering in the capability of a battery backup and managing that as well?
JIMMY WANG: We are also now launching a new system which we called a magic box, for the energy measurements. It is a single box which will have a function not only for PV and hybrid but also on-grid and off-grid hybrid. It is capable of charging a battery to manage energy consumption. For us it’s a solution, for the home owners it’s the energy measurements. That’s why its called the Magic box.
CHARLIE THURSTON: Well, if it is doing all of that, it seems like to be a magic box. Thank you both of us for interviewing with us today.
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