Solar Inverter Innovation 2009

Until recently, the electronics used in PV systems – inverters and Balance of System (BoS) have been an overlooked and underinvested part of the solar ecosystem – despite being a multi-billion dollar market that has not seen a lot of innovation.

But this year, there has been a surge in investment and entrepreneurial activity in solar BoS.

The investment climate is changing – the once stagnant inverter and balance of plant market is being shaken up by VC investment and entrepreneurial innovation. In addition to being a sector with room for technical innovation and performance enhancement, the inverter market is also more capital efficient than the solar panel manufacturing sector.  And capital efficiency is this year’s VC mantra.

New thinking in inverters by VC-funded entrepreneurs is challenging the conventional wisdom in solar installations with the potential for lower materials and labor cost and higher overall system conversion efficiencies.  These new distributed inverter architectures have the potential to disrupt the $1.8 billion PV inverter market.

Here’s a table of the new entrants into the distributed inverter field:

And here’s a rundown on this year’s distributed inverter company news so far.

Enphase Energy (Microinverter)

• Entered an agreement with Suntech to market Enphase's microinverters to Suntech's U.S. dealer network

• Closed $22.5 million in financing led by Madrone Capital Partners with Bay Partners, Third Point Ventures, RockPort Capital Partners and Applied Ventures

 

National Semiconductor (DC-DC)

• Acquired ACT Solar in order to enhance its distributed MPPT product line

• Signed a memorandum of understanding with Chinese solar panel maker Suntech Power, which plans to evaluate National’s distributed MPPT product

 

SolarEdge (DC-DC)

• Closed a $23 million Round B led by Vertex Venture Capital with Walden International, Opus Capital and Genesis Partners

• Entered an agreement with BP Solar to explore commercialization of embedding SolarEdge’s power harvesting system directly into BP’s Solar modules

• Entered a strategic partnership in which Gehrlicher Solar, a PV system integrator, incorporates the SolarEdge product into its PV system integration portfolio

• Entered a joint design agreement with Schott Solar to develop and test power harvesting systems embedded into Schott Solar’s modules

SET (Sustainable Energy Technology) (Microinverter)

• SET (TSX VENTURE:STG) received $7.6 million in financing to launch its next generation solar inverter with funding led by Doughty Hanson  

Tigo Energy (DC-DC)

• Closed $10 million second-round of funding led by Israel Cleantech Ventures with existing investors OVP, Matrix Partners, and Clal Energy

There are lots more details on these disruptive new technologies and this emerging market in the latest issue of the Greentech Innovations Report.