Enphase Energy, Inc., a global energy technology company and the world’s leading supplier of solar microinverters, today announced that Flywheel Development LLC has selected Enphase microinverters as the inverter technology of record for its portfolio of commercial solar projects. Based in Washington D.C., Flywheel Development is a leading sustainable development company active in real estate, sustainable design, solar development, and stormwater management infrastructure, with a focus on high-performance, net-zero buildings.
Flywheel has standardized its portfolio of commercial and multi-unit dwelling solar projects on Enphase microinverters due to their high degree of design flexibility. Among the Flywheel solar project portfolio in the greater D.C. area is Nicholas Landing, a newly constructed, nine-unit housing development owned by the Housing Commission of Talbot County, Maryland, and funded in part by the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development. Nicholas Landing complements the architectural style of the surrounding structures and therefore required Flywheel to design a solar system that spans the shared roofs of the buildings across numerous, variably pitched planes. To meet the requirement for an equitable distribution of energy output to each of the residential units, Flywheel used HelioScope solar design software to determine which combination of differently oriented solar modules should interconnect to each of the nine units. The distributed architecture, which underpins the Enphase microinverter system, allowed for maximum flexibility in defining the ideal combination of modules on each AC branch circuit.
“We bring human-centered design and a firm belief in the power of innovation to every project at Flywheel, and the support from the Enphase commercial solar team helps us efficiently deliver advanced solar solutions to our customers and communities,” said Jessica Pitts, co-founder and principal at Flywheel Development LLC. “Using Enphase microinverters removes several prominent design constraints of legacy solar technologies, improving our ability to imagine and build high-performance, resilient buildings. The collaboration with Enphase is off to a great start, and our design team is already putting the benefits of microinverter technology to work on projects that are in the early design phase.”
Flywheel Development uses seventh-generation Enphase IQ™ microinverters, which leverage Enphase’s 55 nm custom ASIC for higher reliability and better economies of scale. Enphase solar inverter technology is designed to support residential as well as commercial solar applications with a unique, software-defined architecture and built-in support for Rapid Shutdown and California Rule 21 requirements. Enphase microinverters are subjected to a rigorous reliability and quality testing regiment with over one million cumulative hours of test cycles in heat, high humidity, salty air, and extreme cold. Seventh-generation Enphase microinverters are designed to be long-lived energy assets and do not contain complicated moving parts or easily breakable components, such as fans, and are backed by a 25-year warranty.
“The Flywheel team takes a holistic and scientific approach to net-zero energy buildings, and we are proud to support them with world-class solar inverter technology,” said Dave Ranhoff, chief commercial officer at Enphase Energy. “We are committed to empowering solar installers with a combination of the best products and an outstanding customer experience. I am delighted to see leaders in sustainable development like Flywheel take full advantage of what Enphase has to offer.”
