Enphase Energy raises $15 million to expand solar microinverter production

Enphase Energy has raised $15 million to expand manufacturing of its solar microinverter products. The funding round was led by new investor, RockPort Capital Partners, and also included existing institutional investors Third Point Ventures and Applied Ventures LLC (the venture capital arm of Applied Materials), both of which participated in the company's $6.5 million round completed earlier this year.

"With thousands of units in the field and increasing demand, customer acceptance of Enphase microinverters has exceeded expectations," says Paul Nahi, president/CEO of Enphase. "Customers see the considerable economic benefits of the microinverter systems—increased energy production, higher reliability and reduced operational costs. This additional investment will enable us to respond to the accelerating demand for our products."

"We are excited to join the Enphase team,” said Todd Wilson, RockPort general partner and soon-to-be newest member of Enphase's board. "The company’s products are industry-defining and Enphase has proven management, a soaring market, and an excellent value proposition. We are committed to helping Enphase reach the next levels of success."

The Petaluma, CA-based company says its high-efficiency, fully integrated microinverters convert the DC power from each solar module to grid-compliant AC power and transmit performance information from each module to a secure website for analysis and visualization, thus eliminating the need for a large centralized inverter. The systems have registered energy harvest gains of 5-25% compared with traditional inverters, have demonstrated a mean time between failure of 119 years, providing system availability of >99.8%, and have also shown balance-of-systems and labor savings of about 15%.

Enphase's microinverters, installed in commercial and residential solar power systems throughout the United States, are compatible with most major solar module brands and can be purchased from leading solar distributors and installers.

-- Tom Cheyney