Yikes. Another microinverter company.  It's getting crowded in here.

Direct Grid Technologies of Ronkonkoma, N.Y., a subsidiary of Island Technology has introduced a microinverter for the photovoltaic market. The mother company, Island Technology, has a heritage of working with utilities in the Northeast such as Con Edison in monitoring and control equipment.

I spoke with Louis Squeo, the Director of Sales of Marketing.

"We saw some shortcomings in the microinverter arena," said Squeo. "Some of the microinverters out there are low wattage – 170 to 190 watts. Our offerings are in excess in 200 watts, one 200 watts and one 300 watts version with room for more."

This high wattage target raises the question of what solar panels they're going after. And the answer according to Squeo is "thin film." The company is going after the large format amorphous silicon thin-film panels from Signet Solar, one of which is rated at 340 watts.  According to Squeo: "We have been engaged with Signet Solar for a few months and one of the officers of the company is in Dresden as we speak." (The Signet Solar factory is in Dresden.)

Microinverters, as we've covered many times, convey a number of advantages to solar installations. By individuating the panels – maximum power point tracking is optimized for each panel, losses to to shading, soiling, and panel mismatch are reduced and overall system voltages are lowered. Depending on who you ask – there are potential reliability advantages.

Direct Grid uses a closed loop planar MOSFET – allowing sophisticated digital control, and claims that the sine wave created by their inverter better matches the utility AC line. 

Squeo foresees a future of do-it-yourself solar – where the consumer can buy an AC solar panel and install and connect that unit by themselves.

According to an optimistic note in their press release, shipments are "expected in the fourth quarter 2009."

Direct Grid joins the growing list of microinverter companies. Only EnPhase is shipping in commercial volumes – it has shipped over 50,000 units since last August. And Petra Solar which recently publicized a large contract with New Jersey's largest utility, PSE&G, is alleged to start shipments any day now.
 
Here's an updated list of microinverter firms:

  • Accurate Solar
  • Azuray
  • Direct Grid
  • Enecsys
  • EnPhase Energy
  • GreenRay Solar
  • Larankelo
  • Petra Solar
  • SolarBridge (formerly SmartSpark)

The question is: How many microinverter companies can the market bear?

More details in the GTI Report: The Coming Disruption in the PV Inverter Market.

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