LS ELECTRIC showcases BESS and switchgear at Battery Show

LS ELECTRIC America is presenting its battery energy storage system (BESS) and switchgear solutions at The Battery Show North America 2026 in Detroit. The company's portfolio connects power conversion and electrical distribution, targeting utility-scale, commercial, and industrial energy-storage projects. By combining scalable string inverters with robust medium- and low-voltage switchgear, the showcased technologies aim to streamline grid interconnection and turnkey project delivery for modern solar-plus-storage and microgrid architectures.

Air-cooled and liquid-cooled string inverters
To address varying power conversion requirements, the company is exhibiting two distinct inverter platforms. The AiON-SIS is a modular, air-cooled string inverter available in 116 kW and 140 kW ratings. Accepting an input range of 620 to 1500 VDC, it achieves a maximum efficiency exceeding 98.5 percent, allowing project teams to configure scalable power blocks. For higher power-density applications, the liquid-cooled MSSP GEN 2.0 inverter is offered in 150 kW, 190 kW, and 220 kW configurations. This platform accommodates 1050 to 1500 VDC inputs and achieves over 99 percent efficiency, specifically designed to support compact, megawatt-scale BESS architectures.

Medium- and low-voltage electrical distribution
Beyond power conversion, the exhibit highlights electrical protection systems critical for safely integrating energy storage into the grid. The MCSG Metal Clad Switchgear provides medium-voltage distribution ranging from 4.76 kV to 38 kV. Featuring a front-access design to reduce the required installation footprint, this UL/ANSI-rated platform is available in both arc-resistant and non-arc-resistant configurations. For high-capacity low-voltage requirements, the modular Susol UL switchgear provides a complementary solution. It supports continuous current ratings up to 6,000 A, delivering robust arc-fault protection of up to 100 kA at 635 V AC.

Additional Context: String inverters in utility-scale BESS
This section details technical specifications and competitive benchmarking not included in the original product announcement.

In utility-scale Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), developers have traditionally relied on massive, centralized inverters (often 2 MW to 4 MW per unit). While cost-effective at the capital expenditure level, a single point of failure in a central inverter can take an entire multi-megawatt battery block offline. The energy storage industry is increasingly shifting toward distributed string inverter architectures. This decentralized approach allows each 150 kW to 220 kW inverter to manage a smaller, dedicated battery rack, significantly improving the State-of-Charge (SoC) balancing across degrading lithium-ion cells over their 15-year lifecycle. Furthermore, utilizing liquid cooling at the inverter level allows for extreme power density and efficient thermal integration with the battery pack's own liquid thermal management system, drastically reducing the auxiliary HVAC power consumption of the overall energy storage container.

Edited by an industrial journalist, Lekshman Ramdas, with AI assistance.

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