GTM Research forecasts a $6.9 billion PV inverter market for 2011 and MJ Shiao, GTM's inverter expert, just published the authoritative report on the Global PV Inverter Landscape.
The sub-sector of inverters, microinverters and their kin -- dubbed "distributed inversion and optimization" -- is a small, innovative and growing segment of the market, and Shiao explores it comprehensively in his report.
We've covered the potential benefits of distributed electronics at length in our solar coverage at Greentech Media. There are potential energy harvest gains, potential improvements in design flexibility, and potential reliability gains. There is some question as to whether the microinverter solution or the DC-to-DC power optimizer architecture is the way to go.
Intersolar Europe is officially underway this week and there's the usual flood of announcements coming from the conference. Here's a roundup of news in the microinverter and distributed electronics sector to keep our readership on top of this important and emerging piece of the solar installation puzzle.
Array Converter is still in stealth. Read about them here and peruse their patents here. Make sure to check out this comment thread here.
Azuray is displaying their power-optimizer/junction box and communications gateway in partnership with Renhe Photovoltaic Technology, a large China-based PV junction box manufacturer.
Direct Grid's micro-inverters for large commercial and utility-scale projects use Echelon Corporation's energy control networking software.
eIQ Energy signed an agreement with Granite Construction (NYSE: GVA) to provide parallel solar technology for a 1.2-megawatt solar PV installation at Granite's aggregate and hot mix facility in Coalinga, California.
Enecsys won $41 million in round B VC funding from Climate Change Capital Private Equity, Wellington Partners, NES Partners, and Good Energies last month. Each Enecsys micro inverter has a built-in ZigBee wireless monitoring system.
Enphase has hit the 750,000-unit mark on microinverter shipments. At this pace, the one-million-unit threshold is only a few months away. The firm also launched its most efficient microinverter (96 percent CEC-weighted), along with a 25-year limited warranty.
Involar builds microinverters in China that look a lot like Enphase microinverters, on the outside at least.
National Semiconductor's integrated circuits are designed for use in PV system microinverters, power optimizers, and charge controllers.
Petra Solar is going global with their pole-mounted AC module.
Phobos Energy has a license agreement with Colorado University for PV balance-of-system technology developed at CU-Boulder's Colorado Power Electronics Center.
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