inverters

The prospect of Japan introducing a tender system for large-scale solar project rights from this year does not phase international companies doing PV business in Japan, who have said they are ready for the new policy.

Taking place this week in Tokyo as part of the World Smart Energy Week event attracting around 70,000 visitors, PV Expo features an eye-opening and often exotic range of products and services. Here are pictures of some highlights taken by PV Tech reporter Andy Colthorpe.

SolarEdge is rolling out a new complete residential solution throughout Europe that combines inverters, storage and home automation. The idea is to manage and monitor electricity consumption, solar energy generation and storage through one central device control that enables enhanced energy independence and increases self-consumption.

This week's Movers & Shakers includes a celebration of clean energy with the #CleanEnergyJobs campaign revealing that the industry employs over 3 million Americans to date. The segment also includes NRG and ABB appointing new board members, Germany's KACO expanding into Asian markets and the SEIA hiring Dana Sleeper as its new head of external affairs.

Solar Frontier Americas, the US subsidiary of one of the world’s largest CIS module manufacturers, is nearing completion of two solar plants totalling 106MW in Southern California.

The industry is increasingly turning to 1500V systems to improve BoS costs but SolarEdge's Lior Handelsman suggests a more tried and tested approach.

Sweden announces effective abolition of its solar tax, Etrion and Hitatchi High-Technologies partner on a 13.2MW project in Japan, Wynnertech supplies 20MW of inverters to a project in Iran, and Enel North America and GE Energy enter a JV.

PV inverter manufacturer SolarEdge Technologies reported lower third quarter revenue and guided further revenue declines through the end of the year on weak US residential market and continued ASP pressure in the highly competitive inverter market.

Fully digitized solar power plants will be the next focus for improving efficiencies in the solar PV industry according, to Guoguang Chen, general manager of inverter manufacturer Huawei’s Smart PV Europe Business.

Globally, the top 10 inverter suppliers accounted for around 75% of shipments in 2015. In India, the market is even more concentrated as the top 10 suppliers accounted for over 85% of shipments. Despite this, there is intense price competition and churning in supplier landscape. Bridge to India's Jasmeet Khurana investigates.