SMA Wins the Intersolar AWARD 2008

The new Sunny Boy 5000TL Multi-String PV inverter from SMA has obtained this year's Intersolar Award. The jury was won over by the inverter's ergonomic design, easy installation, and, most of all, its support for Bluetooth communication. All devices in the new Sunny Boy generation come with the Bluetooth wireless standard built in. They also feature wireless system monitoring and diagnostics via a laptop or PC.

The goal of the Intersolar Award is to highlight the innovative strength of the solar industry. This year the Intersolar Award was presented for new and trend-setting photovoltaic and solar thermal products and services, for the first time.

The new Sunny Boy 5000TL just recently won the iF Design Award and has now been honored with the Intersolar Award for its Bluetooth support. SMA is the only PV inverter manufacturer that equips its devices with Bluetooth Class 1 technology, offering a range of up to 100 meters in open air. The devices can be linked to each other in a wireless network in which each device acts as a repeater. With Bluetooth Class 1 technology you can connect up to 100 devices provided the distance between neighboring devices does not exceed 100 meters in open air. "If you picture a system in which 100 devices are installed with a distance of 100 meters between each device, then the devices form a wireless network that is ten kilometers long. If you are able to access just one of these inverters with a laptop, for example, then you can communicate with all the devices via Bluetooth as if they also were in the direct range of your laptop. Naturally, this makes service much easier," explains Dr. Bernd Engel, SMA Division Manager of Development. "By winning the Intersolar Award, our high level of innovation has been recognized yet again."

In addition to simplified system diagnostics and maintenance for qualified personnel, the use of Bluetooth technology also offers a host of advantages for the system operator:

  • Using Bluetooth eliminates additional cabling and hence reduces the investment costs of the system.
  • Networking the devices over Bluetooth allows system monitoring and thus investment security. Malfunctions are located via remote monitoring, which means they can be identified and corrected at a much faster rate.
  • Avoiding unnecessary downtimes helps guarantee system yields.
  • For presentation purposes, a Bluetooth network of inverters is a necessary condition for displaying the present data of a PV system.
  • Bluetooth is an established wireless standard that can be used throughout the world and meets all industrial requirements.


The networking capability of Bluetooth makes it the ideal choice for setting up wireless system communication. SMA offers its customers a solution that is reliable, powerful and inexpensive at the same time – without the need for additional installation work. Featuring an efficiency of 97 percent and Multi-String technology, the Sunny Boy 5000TL can also be adapted to fit almost any module configuration.

München/Kassel