Inverter industry may enter the shuffle

“According to the downturn in the photovoltaic industry, it is expected that orders for China's PV special equipment will be reduced by more than 80% this year, and the domestic PV equipment market is expected to exceed 4.5GW.” At the second Intersolar China International Symposium recently held, China PV Wang Bohua, secretary general of the industry union, disclosed to the outside world.

Wang Bohua believes that this is mainly due to the unregulated development of the photovoltaic industry in recent years, high external dependence, lack of technological infrastructure and innovation, and the rapid deterioration of the international trade environment, especially the growth of industrial manufacturing capabilities far exceeds the growth of the market. Overcapacity disrupts the normal pace of industrial development.

According to the reporter's understanding, with the changes in the entire photovoltaic industry, the photovoltaic inverter market is also undergoing dramatic changes.

In the coming years, the ranking of leading inverter suppliers will change significantly both in the international market and the domestic market. IMS Research's forecast also shows that the top ten global manufacturers in 2014 will be very different from today's situation, and more Chinese and Japanese companies will emerge.

Chinese enterprises have gradually won recognition from Xie Feng, a senior analyst at IMS Research. He said that in 2016, global shipments of inverters will reach 60GW, and the market size will reach US$10 billion. He believes that the change in the ranking of traditional leader companies depends mainly on the development of emerging markets.

Compared with solar modules, domestic inverters still account for a small share of the international market. Xie Feng believes that from the quality point of view, the gap between domestic inverters and international brand inverters is narrowing. From the perspective of the inverters in each power segment, significant improvements have been achieved in the stability and conversion efficiency of domestic inverters. IMS Research's downstream user survey of inverters also shows that more and more Western customers are beginning to accept Chinese inverters.

However, Xie Feng said that the expansion of market share requires not only the product itself, but also depends on the company's continued brand positioning and continuous market investment. As China's PV inverter brands started relatively late, shipments in 2011 were only close to 10% of the total global inverter shipments. In addition, localization of the inverter core components (IGBT and MPPT) has not yet been realized.

"I believe that in the next 3-5 years, domestic inverters will achieve a major breakthrough in stability and conversion efficiency," said Xie Feng. In his view, Europe and the United States have not involved inverters at present, so the impact on the domestic inverter industry is indirect.

A person in charge who entered the inverter industry for only three years told reporters that at present, the price is close to the cost of the industry, many small businesses are difficult to support, Europe and the United States "double reverse" for China's photovoltaic industry, the impact is comprehensive, As an integral part of the industrial chain, inverters are significantly affected by the upstream and downstream industries. It is inevitable that the inverter industry will enter the reshuffle period.

The market pattern of technology and price According to statistics, there are more than 100 inverter manufacturers in China, and not less than 50 companies with a scale of over 5MW. However, the top ten manufacturers, their shipments accounted for more than 70% of the market. The grasp of future market trends and technological trends is believed to change the market structure of inverters to a large extent.

According to IMS Research's observation on the emerging photovoltaic market, in 2013-2017, domestic centralized inverters with 500 kW and above will still be the mainstream. However, as the country's support for distributed photovoltaic power generation is implemented, shipments of centralized inverters of 30-250 kW may also increase.

The industry generally believes that in Europe, small and medium power inverters will still be the mainstay. In China, inverters with more than 250kW will be the mainstay.

Xie Feng told reporters that there is already a demand for multi-channel MPPT <=5kW string inverters in the European market. In the next two to three years, more energy storage systems will also be seen in residential rooftop PV systems around the world.

Li Yun, director of solar electronics at Fronius China, believes that due to the high cost per watt of micro-inverters, the market share will be exceeded by the power optimizer in the next few years.

According to reports, the inverter is different from the components, and it belongs to electronic products. In order to achieve the desired quality and conversion rate, the selection of internal components also becomes crucial. This is the prerequisite for ensuring product stability.

Industry insiders told reporters that high-quality hardware is important, but in addition to hardware that determines the performance of the inverter, the software side is also particularly important, for example, the design of the structure, optimization of algorithms, and so on. Therefore, with the hardware, it is not difficult to assemble the inverter, but the core competitiveness of the inverter enterprise is at its software end.

Xie Feng said that due to the expansion of installed capacity, technological progress, and market competition, it is expected that the average price of inverters will continue to decline. If we discuss the cost of inverters, the proportion of inverters in household roof systems and ground systems is different. In order to calculate the ratio of the PV inverter to the system cost, we must know what kind of inverter is used in this project in combination with the specific system plan.

The person in charge of an inverter manufacturer told the reporter that photovoltaic inverters are the core power conditioning devices of photovoltaic systems. In general, the proportion of system cost is between 10% and 15%.

“The impact of inverters on photovoltaic systems is more reflected in grid access. For household system investors (usually owners or community managers) and small commercial power plant investors (usually industrial users), the overall The efficiency of grid-connected power generation is even more important, namely the average output of photovoltaic systems, time-to-failure operation, and the ability to adapt to grid requirements to flexibly peak and fill valleys, said Xie Feng.

Opportunities in Emerging Markets At the second Intersolar China International Symposium, many PV companies talked about the opportunities brought about by the launch of the Japanese market, including many PV inverter companies.

2012 is undoubtedly an eventful year for the photovoltaic industry. As mature photovoltaic inverter markets such as Germany and Italy have already cut back on feed-in tariffs, manufacturers are actively seeking emerging markets such as the United States, South America and Asia. In Asia, the Chinese market, the Indian market and the Japanese market are particularly concerned.

It is widely expected in the industry that with the development of the market, inverter manufacturers will try to break into these growing new photovoltaic markets and make profits in the future, but the reality does not seem easy. With the development of markets in Asia, South Africa and South America, the photovoltaic inverter market will become more fragmented, and long-term expectations and reasonable strategic decisions will be critical in the coming years.

Previously, as Europe reduced subsidies for solar power generation, SMA, the world’s largest inverter production company, expects the company’s 2013 sales to be significantly reduced to between US$900 million and US$1.3 billion. Its 2012 sales are expected to be between 1.3 billion and 1.5 billion U.S. dollars.

As far as Chinese domestic companies are concerned, many of the leading companies are export-oriented companies, and their contribution to overseas markets cannot be underestimated.

According to industry sources, as Japan implements the new "Renewable Energy Law," it will implement a fixed price purchase system for renewable energy, and the Japanese government will provide a subsidy of ¥42 per kilowatt-hour for photovoltaic power generation, which means that its subsidies. The amount will be double that of Germany's subsidy, three times the amount of China's subsidy, and the policy is quite tempting.

This policy has attracted companies to enter the Japanese market one after another, including many Chinese companies. However, the Japanese market seems tempting, but there are many barriers, such as certification is a difficult battle. The most typical is the J-PEC certification of the Japan Solar Power Popularization and Promotion Center and the JET certification of the Japan Electrical Safety Environmental Testing Laboratory. It is understood that although there are many inverter companies in the world, only a handful of companies have obtained JET certification.

"The grasp of the Chinese domestic market and emerging markets such as Japan and South Africa will largely rewrite the competitive landscape of inverter manufacturers," a researcher told reporters.