Case Study: Photovoltaic (PV) Inverters Manufacturing Company cuts testing capital costs by up to 66% and halves reporting time with Keysight

Driving Down the Cost of Testing 1,500 V Photovoltaic Systems

Photovoltaic (PV) Inverters Manufacturing Company, along with two other prominent PV inverter makers, faced the industry shift from 600/1,000 Vdc to 1,500 Vdc systems and found their existing 500/1,000 V test setups inadequate. They needed faster, repeatable testing of many more parameters (including static and dynamic MPPT), while reducing excessive heat and cooling costs in the test lab—challenges that threatened time-to-market and increased test complexity.

Keysight answered with the Keysight N8957APV photovoltaic array simulator and SAS control software, whose 1,500 Vdc output, autoranging (1500 V/10 A to 500 V/30 A) and automated test/reporting capabilities replaced multiple rectangular power supplies. The Keysight solution cut capital equipment investment by up to 66%, slashed data-logging and report generation time by over 50% (turning multi-hour MPPT setups into one-click runs and minute-scale reports), and enabled fast, repeatable simulation of real-world conditions to accelerate production-ready inverter validation.