Enphase Energy is pursuing opportunities in New Zealand and also has hungry eyes for across the ditch.
A leading manufacturer of microinverters; Enphase set up an engineering design centre in Christchurch in 2011 and says it hopes to expand the center.
While New Zealand may not be a huge potential market for micro-inverters; in Australia it’s a different story. Enphase recently stated Australia could become its second biggest market if policy settings remain favourable; i.e. the Renewable Energy Target remains as is.
In a recent interview with RenewEconomy; Enphase CEO Paul Nahi said countries that restrict solar in any way “would be on the wrong side of history”.
Microinverters are small boxes that can be attached to the back of solar panels to convert the DC output of the panels to AC; which is suitable for use by home appliances and export to the mains grid. The microinverter does away with the need for the single large solar inverter commonly seen in home solar power installations.
Microinverters grabbed somewhere between 30 – 50 percent of the U.S. residential market in 2013; with Enphase accounting for more than 90 percent of the market.
Enphase microinverters are now in their fourth generation and offer a 96.5 percent CEC efficiency.
In January, the company announced it had shipped a total of 1GW capacity of microinverters since 2008 – more than 5 million units.
During the final quarter of last year, Enphase shipped 107MW (AC); an increase of 14 percent compared to the third quarter of 2013 and an increase of 30 percent year-over-year.
Less than 5% of Australia’s rooftop solar installations feature micro-inverters; a figure that Enphase is eager to boost.
Other major players in the micro-inverter sector include SMA and Power-One.
Related:
Power optimizers vs. Micro-inverters
Micro, String And Central Inverters
