Original Energy: Miniature PV Inverters expected to reach 8GW in 2014

Although the installed capacity of the global solar energy market continues to increase, the effect of falling prices caused by excessive capacity expansion has already hit the solar energy industry. With weaker prices and uncertain future demand, solar energy suppliers in the middle and lower reaches of the supply chain are facing severe challenges. However, some of them have overcome difficulties with innovative technologies and successfully found a foothold in the market. EnergyTrend has exclusive access to original energy sources and learns how micro-inverters will change the existing landscape of the solar industry.

In the current downturn of the solar energy market, the industry has stepped into the stage of elimination. While the industry is being restructured, each manufacturer has a long-term advantage. Another key factor in winning is the proportion of products with high conversion efficiency. However, the photoelectric conversion efficiency that affects the system cannot be viewed from the perspective of the solar cell module in a single way. In response to the market's demand for high conversion efficiency solar energy, it is also necessary to consider the final power output, and to obtain the maximum output possible from the solar cell module. The heavy responsibility of power falls on the inverter. Therefore, one of the biggest challenges facing the solar system is to improve the overall performance of the system through the inverter.

Micro-inverter solves traditional product masking problems and simplifies system design Huang Weizhe, founder and CEO of original energy, points out that the micro-inverter has many advantages that conventional inverters do not have, in addition to solving the existing problems of shading, and greatly simplifying The system's circuit design, its low current and voltage characteristics can maintain a stable working environment, and tracking the maximum single-chip output power, one-on-one with individual solar modules, improve the system 5 to 25% of the output power. The development of micro-inverters is related to the development of the future roof market. Looking at the growth trend of the roof market, when the overall solar system unit price is close to the city's electricity price, it is the time for the roof market to officially take off. Huang CEO thinks that the solar roof will become the mainstream of the solar industry in the future, and the micro-inverter is precisely this The best solution on the market.

In addition, Original Energy pointed out that the life and reliability of micro-inverters are higher than those of conventional inverters. The reason is that traditional inverters operate at high voltages of 3 to 5 kilowatts, and the operating temperature environment is very high, while micro-inverters and each As for the chip modules, the average operating power is 200~150 watts. The overall operating voltage and operating temperature will be much lower than traditional inverters. Because the stability of electronic products is affected by environmental temperature, voltage, humidity and other factors, In addition, the design of electronic materials and circuit boards used in micro-inverters is not the same. Overall, the product life can reach 20 to 25 years, and it can be used in combination with existing modules to ensure product life guarantee, while the traditional inverters The warranty is up to five years. After five years, consumers have to pay an additional fee to extend the warranty period. The additional expenses may be the price of the inverter that was originally purchased, even if the user chooses not to extend the warranty period, follow-up maintenance and maintenance. Cost is also a burden. Based on the above factors, the future growth trend of micro-inverters is very worth the wait.

The development of micro-inverter market is expected to reach 8GW installation capacity in 2014. Huang CEO thinks that micro-inverters will be very worthy of development in the next 3-5 years. Although the micro-inverter market is still small, it will grow in the future. The space is huge, and it is expected to reach 8GW installation capacity in 2014. For the future regional market, the development of micro-inverters can be divided into several points of view. In the short-term, the largest market for micro-inverters next year is North America. In the medium term, it is expected that there will be good opportunities for development in the European market in the second half of next year. Demand in some European countries will start to ferment, especially in Belgium, the United Kingdom, France and Italy. Since Germany's development of the solar industry was early and local system installers have used traditional inverters for more than 10 years, due to the deep-rooted thinking caused by the familiarity that the traditional inverter is the best solution, there has been no contact with a better solution. In the case of micro-inverters, it takes time to educate at different levels, so the time for Germany to accept micro-inverters will be later, about 1 to 6 months slower than other European countries, and the microinverter will be the latest in 2013. The transformers will grow significantly in the German market because the German market accounts for 50% to 60% of the roofed home market, while the comparable electricity prices reach around Q3 in 2012. In Germany, the growth of the roof market in the coming years will be even stronger. Big. In the Asian market, CEO Huang is very optimistic about Japan's solar market next year, conservatively looking at 2 to 2.5 GW. CEO Huang also believes that China is expected to replace Europe as the world's largest solar energy market after 3 to 5 years, but it is still a large-scale project. The demand for solar roofs has not yet risen as fast as the mainland's home market after five years. Will slowly get up. In the future, Original Energy will make strategic product development according to the time difference of market development. Now it is pushing a single model, and in the future, it may differentiate the market to tailor products suitable for different regional markets.

Still optimistic about the future development of the solar market outlook for the solar market, CEO Huang believes that 2011 is the second revision of the solar energy industry after the financial tsunami, the past five years due to the subsidy policy of various countries, creating rapid development of solar energy, which also It indicates that the entry threshold for the solar energy industry in the past was too simple. In 2012, it will enter the era of solar energy 2.0. Manufacturers must demand stability and differentiate themselves. In the future, after solar energy becomes more and more popular, different technologies can be applied to different technologies. After the start, manufacturers can seek two ways to survive. First, to expand the market to maintain market share, but gross margins will not be too high. Another option is to focus on the development of more unique technologies.

Executive Huang pointed out that solar energy is priced per watt. No matter how good the price of the technology is, it will not be useful. The inverter will probably account for 10% to 15% of the total system. After further cost analysis, it is found that according to current prices, The micro-inverter is 10 to 20% cheaper than the conventional solution because the output of the micro-inverter is AC, which saves the wire and overall system (BOS) parts that are required in many conventional solutions. In addition, the original micro-inverter has a product warranty period of 20 years. In comparison, if the traditional inverter has a 20-year product warranty, the cost per watt will increase by about 0.8 US dollars. As far as installation time is concerned, traditional inverters will take nearly 40 hours from design and construction to installation, and the use of micro-inverters will reduce the number of design and installation man-hours, and the cost savings from shortened installation man-hours will be even higher in North America and Europe. Significant.

On the other hand, Huang also emphasized that traditional inverters have been developed for 20 years, and there is little room for cost reduction. Looking back at micro-inverters, the background of the company’s R&D team spans the semiconductor, solar and IC industries and hopes to go even further. Simplifying the product line design to further reduce costs. Although the current manufacturing cost of the micro-inverter is relatively high, after mass production reaches the economic scale in the next two years, he is confident that the micro-inverter will be cheaper than the conventional inverter. Huang also said that the micro-inverter is a product with destructive innovation, will lead the entire solar energy industry revolution, but also self-confidence for the solar industry's apple. According to the original energy, the order visibility was high in 2012, with the most conservative 300,000 units.