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DrQuine
I suspect that the major advantage of micro-inverters is that they enables ...
Rick Merritt
Based on talks at InterSolar last month, micro-inverters do indeed representa ...
Solar inverter sales break record as shares shift
8/16/2010 12:56 PM EDT
SAN JOSE, Calif. – A record 4.9 gigawatts of solar photovoltaic inverters shipped in the second quarter of 2010, according to a new report from market watcher IMS Research (Wellingborough, UK). As the market rises, shares of leading suppliers are starting to shift, the report said.
Inverter sales were up a whopping 284 percent over the previous quarter with more than half of the sales going to Germany, the IMS report said. For the first six months of 2010, solar inverter sales hit 8 GW, a three-fold increase over the same period in 2009.
Inverter suppliers reaped about $1.92 billion in revenues in the quarter amid a 30 percent fall in prices. IMS attributed the price drop to a continuing shift towards larger inverters which have a lower price per Watt.
IMS estimates that market leader SMA Solar Technology saw its share of the market shrink five percent in the quarter. Power-One saw the biggest share gains, up by more than 6 percent, the report said.
“Shipments of 8 GW in the first six months of the year appear to support IMS Research’s prediction of close to 15 GW of new [photovoltaic] installations in 2010 with Q3 and Q4 both expected to be strong quarters for suppliers,” said Ash Sharma, research director for photovoltaics at IMS, speaking in a press statement.
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Rich Krajewski
8/17/2010 2:47 AM EDT
Well, good. I'm always dismayed over how much fossil fuel is wasted in heating up transmission lines. That doesn't happen with solar cells and inverters (at least not when the power is generated locally, on the rooftops of residents). If the cost of 12-volt appliances starts to drop, inverters won't be needed so much, at least not for local power generation.
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BalaLak
8/17/2010 5:30 AM EDT
How have the micro-inverter (each PV panel will have its own inverter) manufacturers fared during the same time? I was under the impression that micro-inverters are becoming more popular than the conventional inverters because (it is claimed) the cost of ownership is less in the case of the former.
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Rick Merritt
8/17/2010 11:08 AM EDT
Based on talks at InterSolar last month, micro-inverters do indeed representa big share of the future. I don't know if there is anything in the full repport here about them, biut I suspect they are a tiny emerging piece of the current market.
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DrQuine
8/17/2010 11:25 PM EDT
I suspect that the major advantage of micro-inverters is that they enables energy to be independently captured from each portion of the solar array. If the entire array is a single series of photocells feeding a single inverter then failure or shading of any portion of the solar array (dirt, tree branch, fallen leaf) blocks production of the entire array.
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