SolarBridge Begins Volume Production of Microinverters in China

SolarBridge Technologies, a developer of module-integrated microinverters for the solar industry, has entered volume production with Celestica (NYSE: CLS) in Dongguan, China.

The Austin, Texas-based company also opened an office in Shenzen in southern China's Guangdong Province to support manufacturing and operations.

Solarbridge is one of a handful of companies hoping to take a slice of the microinverter market away from Enphase Energy, which has had the niche to itself for several years. (In January, Enphase announced that it reached the half-million mark for microinverter sales.)

Microinverters convert DC current to AC current for each individual solar module. Traditional inverters convert the output of an entire solar array. Microinverters are said to allow greater efficiency, detailed monitoring and design flexibility. Though a recent report by Lux Research suggest the solar power electronics market is somewhat obscured by hype.

SolarBridge provides a microinverter system that is factory-installed onto the back of solar modules to create a complete AC module assembly. AC modules powered by SolarBridge are backed by the industry's first end-to-end 25-year warranty for an integrated AC module.

SolarBridge said production capacity for its Pantheon microinverter will increase to over 70 megawatts (MW) by the end of 2011.

"With Celestica as our global manufacturer, we are well positioned to ramp production quickly and respond to upside demand as the market for AC modules experiences tremendous growth," said Ron Van Dell, president and CEO of SolarBridge.