Western Gas and Electric Company

Chargepoint, Inc.

Western Gas and Electric, Inc.

Hossein Kazemi

Brian L Hinman

Wayne H Miller

Jacky S Wong

Dennis Michael Heleine

John Hsudan Yu

William Rich

Jeffrey Barone

Roeland Vandevelde

Tung-Po Yang

Gopalakrishna Ranjan Melpal

Viggo Selchau-Hansen

Masoud Yazdanian

Parth Sanjiv Gyani

A charging connector adapter is nested within a holster of an electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE). If the adapter is to be used, the EVSE automatically locks the charging connector to the charging connector adapter and unlocks the charging connector adapter from the holster of the EVSE thereby allowing the charging cable with the charging connector adapter to be removed from the holster and used for connecting the charging connector adapter to an inlet of an electric vehicle. When the charging connector adapter is inserted back into the holster, the EVSE locks the charging connector to the holster and unlocks the charging connector from the charging connector adapter.

Electric vehicle charging connector adapter nested in an electric vehicle supply equipment

An integrated electronics housing contains both system electronics and power generation circuits for a two-axis tracker assembly having a CPV solar array. The housing contains at least a communication bus, motion control circuits, and inverter circuits, and acts as the local system control point for that tracker mechanism. The inverter circuits generate three-phase AC voltage that is supplied to a grid interface transformer. Each inverter receives a bipolar DC voltage supplied from its own set of CPV cells. The motion control circuits move the CPV cells of the tracker mechanism to angular coordinates resulting from a solar tracking algorithm. The communication bus connects to the motion control circuits and the inverter circuits to facilitate communications of information, including parameters of power being generated by the inverter circuits, between the motion control circuits and the AC inverter circuits to fine tune the AC power generated out of the tracker mechanism.

Integrated electronics housing for a solar array

Various methods and apparatus are described for a photovoltaic system. In an embodiment, pluralities of three-phase Alternating Current (AC) inverter circuits electrically connect into a common three phase AC output. Each of those inverters receives a bipolar DC voltage supplied from its own set of Concentrated PhotoVoltaic (CPV) modules.

Inverter for a three-phase AC photovoltaic system

Various methods and apparatus are described for a photovoltaic system. In an embodiment, a hybrid grounding circuit as well as a ground fault monitoring circuit are in the inverter circuitry with its switching devices that generate three-phase Alternating Current (AC) voltage. The three-phase AC voltage is supplied to a utility power grid interface transformer, where a primary-side common node of the Utility Power grid interface transformer is connected to Earth ground. Each inverter has 1) its own set of isolation contacts to connect as well as isolate this particular inverter from the utility grid interface transformer, and 2) control components in the ground fault monitoring circuit for controlling operation of the isolation contacts based off a presence of the ground fault detected by the ground fault monitor circuit for that inverter. The inverter circuit receives a DC voltage supplied from its own set of ungrounded Concentrated PhotoVoltaic modules.

Photovoltaic array ground fault detection method for utility-scale grounded solar electric power generating systems

Various methods and apparatus are described for an integrated remotely controlled photovoltaic system having a number of components. A central backend server management system is configured to facilitate management of two or more solar arrays at a remote site from a client device connected over a public wide area network (WAN). An integrated electronics housing contains multiple circuits, including power generation inverter circuits and solar array motion control circuits for one or more PhotoVoltaic (PV) solar arrays at the remote site. The multiple circuits cohesively exist in the integrated electronics housing and actually perform better because of the interconnectivity. The communication circuitry within the integrated electronics housing is configured to establish secure communications over the WAN with the central backend server management system. The integrated electronics housing acts as the local system control point for the first solar array.

Integrated remotely controlled photovoltaic system

Growing community of inventors

San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Hossein Kazemi