Inverters

Enphase’s Q3 results show a company that has turned its fortunes around, with revenues more than doubling and high profitability, but questions remain around growth potential.

The South African utility has issued a 20-strong tender for 50 kW solar inverters and mounting structures, to be used in four power plants. Although it is unclear whether the tender marks the energy company’s first step into solar energy, the procurement follows the recent publication of South Africa’s Integrated Resource Plan. Eskom is reportedly developing a renewables-linked large scale storage project which may explain the need for inverters.

At the recent Solar Power International trade show in Salt Lake City, Utah, part of the larger North America Smart Energy Week, pv magazine met with Hank Wang, President of the Americas Region at the Chinese inverter manufacturer Sungrow. The company expects to ship 2 GW of products to North American markets this year with utility-scale products making up the bulk of these shipments.

In the run up to our Greenwashing vs. verifiable sustainability webinar, the CEO of pv magazine’s UP initiative partner SMA Solar Technology, Jürgen Reinert, talks about what the inverter manufacturer is doing to prove its sustainability credentials.

This year will see strong growth for the global PV market, to 114 GW, and that pattern will continue in the years ahead, according to analyst Wood Mackenzie. a report has highlighted soaring inverter replacement costs for PV project owners as a side-effect of the solar success story.

For its new offer, the Israeli inverter maker is using modules provided by a Tier 1 manufacturer. The products have a 12-year warranty and 25-year performance guarantee.

PVEL’s inaugural inverter scorecard is showing up the need for much more scrutiny on the reliability of inverters. But are developers and EPCs even paying attention?

Carbon clusters of a few nanometers in size could be responsible for the defects affecting the thermal stability of SiCs. The defective carbon accumulations arise during the oxidation of silicon carbide to silicon dioxide under high temperatures.

A tribute to Guy Sella has hailed ‘a brilliant man’ and ‘a revolutionary trailblazer’ who was ‘vibrant and energetic’ yet ‘down-to-earth and approachable’.

While China is single-handedly reducing CAPEX for modules and inverters, Europe understands that hardware won’t be the holy grail – generally speaking. But what is? Perhaps it is time for a new strategy to surf in front of the digital wave.