SMA

German suppliers may still play a central role in providing residential storage systems, however the increasing number of Asian manufacturers on the European market is undeniable. Particularly in the U.K. and Italy, they have captured the lion’s share of sales.

pv magazine’s Future PV Roundtable, held at the 2018 Renewable Energy India (REI) Expo in Greater Noida, discussed how India can better adopt bifacial solar cell and module technology – the future of power generation. Prominent industry speakers also put forth their views on how standards can catalyze solar innovation for India-specific challenges, and on PV materials and components for enhanced module efficiency and recycling.

The German inverter giant says its latest central inverter offering has a capacity of 4.6 MW and offers the ability to connect AC and DC battery storage systems.

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.

The two companies joined to build one of Europes largest storage systems. The project will provide grid management services, such as primary control reserve. SMA says it is just one of four others large grid management storage systems it will commission in Germany over the next few months.

The company reports having shipped 4.3 GW of PV inverter capacity, which marks a significant year-on-year increase. While revenues increased slightly, net income improved by a higher margin.

Huawei spoke to pv magazine in response to the latest allegations made by SolarEdge regarding the latter’s allegedly infringed intellectual property. Huawei is adamant it is one of the world’s largest owners of intellectual property rights and fully supports the protection of IP. The Chinese manufacturer denies the claims made by SolarEdge and points to its extensive IP and research and development (R&D) efforts to support its defense.

The German-based company delivered 26 battery inverters for lithium-ion storage with a capacity of over 50MWh. The facility is one of the largest of its kind and will provide reserve capacity to compensate for deviations in the power supply.

At the smarter E-Intersolar Europe trade show this week, awards have been given to the technologies driving the energy transition to a low carbon future. Prizes include the Intersolar Award, recognizing PV technology; the EES prize for storage innovation; and the smarter E awards – one of which was given to an off-grid agricultural project in Australia.

In the first quarter, SMA saw its sales increase slightly, while EBITDA improved compared to the same period of the previous year. Net profit, however, was significantly below the level of the first quarter of 2017.