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Beat Nyffenegger has been a SmartSolarBox fan from the very beginning. The head of the Swiss installation company Nyffenegger Solar GmbH installed his own 250-kilowatt system with 203 SmartSolarBoxes in 2018. “We covered the entire roof in a day and a half. With a conventional assembly system, it would have taken us two weeks,” he reports.

Whether it's a family home or a commercial enterprise: Since then, Beat Nyffenegger and his team have almost exclusively installed the SmartSolarBox. "The speed is so sensational, even with single-family houses, that even the client's neighborhood immediately asked for an offer. Everything is already designed, numbered and pre-assembled. This saves us considerable human resources. Personal advice is another plus point,” he explains.

Alaittin Cifci and his team certainly hold the world record. The installers from Bi&Ci-Tec GmbH from Kelkheim am Taunus set up a 1-megawatt solar power system with the SmartSolarBox within six days. "With a conventional assembly system, it would have taken us at least four weeks to do this," says the company founder and CTO.

Save waste, material and manpower

Cifci explains: "With the SmartSolarBox we save on waste, material and manpower." Numerous work steps would be eliminated because the fitters don't have to screw any substructure to the roof and neither the system nor the modules have to be installed on site. Ballasting and preparing the connection cables are also no longer necessary. “Because the ballast is already integrated and the system can be lifted onto the roof with the crane, no one has to carry heavy stones. This is good for the health and motivation of the employees,” says Cifci.

The SmartSolarBox is delivered on pre-assembled reusable pallets. "That's why we produce almost no waste - in contrast to conventional assembly, in which we would have to dispose of around 10 to 12 cubic meters of waste per megawatt." Cifci has already planned the next major projects with the foldable assembly system. He also wants to increasingly install the SmartSolarBox on single-family homes in the future.

WestfalenWIND PV GmbH & Co. KG from Paderborn uses the SmartSolarBox primarily on crane platforms for wind turbines. "The installation is quick and easy and we save nine man-days per installation," says Christian Wuttke-Ziller, who manages the large-scale projects on crane sites at WestfalenWIND PV. He does the math: “For a 100-kilowatt system with the SmartSolarBox, we only need three fitters in one day instead of five fitters on five days. This also enables us to eliminate staff shortages.”

WestfalenWIND PV has already implemented seven solar power systems with outputs between 99 and 140 kilowatts using the SmartSolarBox. The foldable system has another advantage, especially for older wind turbines, where large components sometimes have to be replaced: “Not only can it be set up quickly, it can also be dismantled. This is important when the crane parking area is required for assembly and repair work," explains Wuttke-Ziller.

Morten Meier and his team started selling the SmartSolarBox in Norway in 2015. Their largest project with 700 SmartSolarBoxes achieves a total of 880 kilowatts. This year, the CEO of Sun-Net wants to achieve sales of 12 million euros with the foldable solar systems in Norway. As the exclusive partner of Smartvolt in Scandinavia, Meier is striving to open up the market in Denmark in the short term, and later also in Sweden.

100 kilowatts per day
Electricians are very expensive in Norway, but they are needed for the roof installation of solar systems because roofers are not allowed to do DC connections. There are also many old roofs in Norway that will soon need to be renovated. "With the SmartSolarBox we can save considerable personnel costs, because 100 kilowatts per day is no problem with the system," says Meier happily. While it would take 8 people 3 weeks to set up and dismantle a conventional 300-kilowatt solar system for roofs in need of renovation, he can do it in three days with the SmartSolarBox.

Protected against moisture
The connection cables are supplied with the sealing cap fitted. “This protects the plugs and it makes no difference to us whether it rains or not. We can even install the systems in February,” adds Meier. Rainwater can run off at any time due to the open construction, which is why Norway's largest manufacturer of roof coverings and membranes PROTAN has approved the SmartSolarBox as the only PV system.