PV Inverter Technology and Market Development Trend in 5 Years

Abstract: Recently, GTM market research company issued a report titled “Global Photovoltaic Inverter Panorama - Technology and Market Trends 2011-2015”.

Several recent reports indicate that about 59% of PV project failure costs are due to PV inverters. This surprising figure reaffirms GTM market research company's focus on PV inverter market and its technology. In-depth assessment of the relevance shown. However, the good news is that GTM's analysis believes that a new generation of inverter technology (large-scale and residential market) is expected to make large-scale improvements, and more importantly, it can significantly increase the utility-scale PV equipment. Applicability, as well as a higher rate of return for home-use equipment customers in the context of a reduction in feed-in tariff rates.

"The advanced nature of photovoltaic inverter technology has improved the feasibility of solar energy in commercial operations," said GJ analyst and author of the report MJ Shiao. "In large-scale systems, such as fault penetration and reactive voltage support, etc. The support features will make it more suitable for utility-scale equipment and grid operators to integrate photovoltaic power generation equipment into the power grid.With small installation equipment, micro-inverters and distributed power optimizers have shown their respective reduction in installation costs, Potential to improve system performance."

According to the report entitled "Global PV Inverter Landscape: Technology and Market Trends 2011-2015", a large number of new technologies are being developed. These emerging models will also impact on the existing market leader companies that have so far been seen as the “selected minority”.

According to GTM, 61% of the global photovoltaic inverter market is occupied by companies such as SMA, Power-One, Kaco New Energy and Fronius. Not only do major emerging companies need to continue to innovate in order to increase their competitiveness, but with the continued formation and rapid development of markets outside Europe, the European market also needs to diversify, otherwise it will face fierce competition from US and Asian manufacturers. competition.

“As the photovoltaic inverter industry expands beyond the European scope, we will face fierce competition from regional practitioners in emerging markets such as North America and China,” said Mr. Shiao, “in technical differences and bank discounts. The establishment of links between sexes has become the focus of inverter manufacturers, especially those new types of companies that perform distributed generation optimization and inverter business, which have more than tripled their shipments in 2010, and With the potential to reach 4.6 GW in 2015."

Among the issues mentioned in this report, one of them talks about the recent emergence of component-level intelligent electronic devices, in which the DC/DC optimizer and inverter are grouped under the same category called “Distributed Generation Optimization”. .

According to the report, distributed generation optimization technology can improve the conversion rate relative to traditional inverters and will become "the only important technology that can improve product performance in the next decade."

Given that the 50MW installation capacity in the micro-inverter and power optimizer market has grown to 164MW in 2010, this conclusion cannot be discounted.

The transition to smart components that can provide true device integration and opportunities for technological differentiation is another area of ​​concern for this report, although related issues have always been indispensable for consideration of bank discountability.

From the detailed discussion of relevant issues in the report, it is not difficult to find that this concern is not unfounded. Stability and field surveys conducted by project developers such as SunEdison on the causes of photovoltaic power plant failures have shown that inverters are the key cause of these failures. Previously, the software factor was often referred to as the cause of the frequent failure of the photovoltaic inverter.

However, although bank discountability depends on the reliability of the system, the field application data of traditional inverters is much more than the data of micro-inverters. Therefore, any new technology that wants to gain a reputation for its bank discountability It will take some time.

GTM expects that utility-scale inverter demand will lead the development of the entire terminal market in 2015, so the factors of bank discountability will also change, and tend to be more for reasons of performance and reliability. High level of technology.

When it comes to expectations of market prospects, GTM believes that the global PV inverter industry's revenue will reach $6.9 billion in 2011.