Inverters

The production line would mean the Spanish company would comply with local content requirements. GPTech says its order book exceeds 400 MW, including 200 MW of large-scale projects in South Africa.

Having equipped a three-digit MW volume of large scale and distributed generation projects throughout the region, Sungrow is ready for a rapid regional expansion. EMEA general manager Derek Huang told pv magazine at the World Future Energy Summit about his expectations across all market segments.

Enphase’s 3rd quarter results saw revenues at $78 million with an estimated $10 million sales shortfall due to a component shortage, as the company shipped 204 MW of inverters. Future speculation saw an international play on the IQ8, the SunPower partnership, and energy storage driving growth.

The inverter maker took number one spot in the US from SMA this year, and acquired majority stakes and IP in uninterrupted power supply company Gamatronic and storage system provider Kokam. While other companies have consolidated, SolarEdge managed to report robust results.

At pv magazine’s first Latin American Quality Roundtable, held at Intersolar South America in Sao Paulo, we were joined by international players, like JinkoSolar and DuPont, as well as public and private Latin American entities, all of which are striving to bring more quality to the solar PV supply chain, from the U.S.-Mexico border to Tierra del Fuego.

The European Solar Manufacturing Council has been launched at EU PVSEC in Brussels. Participating research institutes, mechanical engineers, material and PV manufacturers stress the importance of having big solar manufacturers in Europe.

Solar battery systems should maintain power supply when the grid goes down. Right? Well, it’s not always that simple. A recent pv magazine Australia webinar, hosted in partnership with SMA, was looking into different homeowner needs and ways to install an emergency power or ‘full home backup’ system. Here are the answers to some of the webinar attendee’s questions.

In an interview with pv magazine, vice president of GoodWe, Ron Shen, talks about the company’s plans for Germany, Spain, Africa and India, in addition to its goal to triple production capacity to 15 GW in China. He also discusses the effect of China’s 31/5 policy change, and plans for an initial public offering (IPO).

The U.S. microinverter maker has said the capacity increase will be made under its partnership with the Flex Group. It will start delivering devices produced in Mexico to the U.S. market, starting in the second quarter of 2019.

New developments in inverter architecture suggest that string inverters have charged forwards again to take on the challenge and kick central inverters off the throne in the utility-scale market. Hardware design innovations allowing to cut down BoS capex and improve efficiency of the plants might push string inverters further to take more space in the utility-scale market place.