SMA Solar Technology has announced a major milestone – the recent sale of the one-millionth solar inverter in the Sunny Boy TL product range.
The amount of collective output of these inverters is 4 gigawatts, which is the equivalent of four typical nuclear power stations.
A winner of both the Intersolar Award and the iF Product Design Award, the Sunny Boy has been a popular choice for home solar power systems around the world and accompanies many rooftop solar arrays in Australia.
One of the many high profile installations where a Sunny Boy is used is the iconic “Welcome To Fabulous Las Vegas” sign; which is now solar powered.
The launch of the inverter in 2008 brought new features to the market.
“It was the first inverter with an integrated global selection system. You can easily configure the right settings for a particular country by simply turning a rotary switch,” said SMA Product Manager Detlev Tschimpke.
Other innovations included a wider voltage range, higher efficiency, the SMA OptiTrac Global Peak shade management system and the SUNCLIX DC plug-in system for ease of installation.
The best-selling inverter of its class worldwide, SMA describes the Sunny Boy as the VW Beetle of inverters and says a very low percentage of warranty claims are made.
” It is rugged, good value, extremely high-quality, quick and easy to install, and able to handle a wide variety of applications … it just keeps running and running,” said Wilfried Vogt; another of SMA’s product managers.
While SMA has seen challenging times in recent years due to increasing competition, something the company refuses to compromise on is quality. SMA solar inverters in general are widely regarded as among the world’s best.
It seems brighter days are ahead for the company, which recently raised its sales and earnings forecast for 2015.
“Global demand for photovoltaic inverters has developed better in 2015 than we had initially expected. This positive development is largely driven by the foreign markets, particularly North America,” said SMA Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer Pierre-Pascal Urbon.
“Thanks to our successful internationalization and the introduction of new product solutions, we have benefited from international market growth and increased our market share.”
One of its relatively recent product additions is the Sunny Home Manager Flexible Storage System; which is now available in Australia.
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