No Longer Lowly

Bill Opalka | Jun 22, 2010

 

I start with the premise that solar cells and modules are the attention-getters in the photovoltaic (PV) component market and don't need much introduction. And when I'm at a trade show or event, it's more likely than not that the inverter manufacturers are the ones most anxiously saying some variation of "look at me."

So it seemed a little unusual when an industry report about inverters, no less, caught my attention.

But IDC Energy Insights did, with its "Vendor Assessment: Industry Short List for Utility-Scale Photovoltaic Inverters for the North American Market." I recently spoke to Sam Jaffe, research manager in IDC's Boulder office and a co-author of the report, which examines the top 10 vendors in the North American market.

In short, the inverter market is poised to take off, following the huge interest in utility-scale PV that is supposed to cause a massive build-out over the next few years.

"Thanks to dramatically decreasing production costs and price points, PV systems are more economical today than they ever have been," the report said. "But that decline has also caused the lowly inverter, once an afterthought in planning for any PV system, to become a more critical purchasing decision than ever before."

Jaffe said there are several reasons for this new-found status. "Two things are happening here in that before the inverter was never more than a dumb box in which direct current went in one end and alternating current came out the other.

"But basically now it is being turned into a computer. There are still those companies that, based on the economies of scale, will make the simple box to drive costs lower, and those who are adding functionality. So the market is becoming bifurcated."

But the market, is being served, as PV projects in the 10-megawatt to 50-megawatt range are being announced with some regularity.

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