Dec 27 2010
Westinghouse Solar, a manufacturer and distributor of solar power systems, recently announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), has granted the company another patent for its solar panel technology.
The patent (U.S. 7,832,157), issued on November 16, 2010, provides additional protection for its panel design, and expands its intellectual property portfolio in the solar panel mounting area.
Important features of the patent include side electrical connections that remove the need to wire solar panels manually, a splice device that connects the panels together in a secure and rigid fashion, grooves along the side to allow connection to rafters at any point along each panel, and a grounding path provided through the devices that does not need panels to be grounded manually.
The company’s engineering team has integrated the racking, wiring and grounding into the frame of the panel.