Shipments of solar PV inverters grew 56% year-on-year between 2022 to 2023 to reach 536GW, according to research and consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.
In its “Global solar inverter and module-level power electronics market share 2024” report, Wood Mackenzie highlights that more than half of the global shipments went to China, as the country more than doubled its installed solar PV capacity in 2023 with 217GW.
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The top ten global PV inverter companies accounted for 81% of the market, once again led by Chinese solar companies Huawei and Sungrow. The two companies alone accounted for more than half of the global market, due to their utility-scale products.
Last year Sungrow reached a milestone of 15GW of inverters sold to the Latin American market, after securing several deals at Intersolar South America in August 2023. More recently, the company signed an inverter supply agreement with Hero Future Energies, a subsidiary of Indian industrial conglomerate Hero Group, for 850MW PV inverters.
Joseph Shangraw, research associate at Wood Mackenzie, said: “In an industry growing as quickly as the PV inverter market, it’s remarkable that Huawei and Sungrow have been able to expand production capacity to maintain their market share year after year.
“Behind these two companies, we still continue to see a diversification of the market, with 11 other manufacturers exceeding 10GWac of shipments in 2023.”
For the second year in a row, Ginlong Solis closed the podium dominated by Chinese inverter providers which also dominated the top ten with nine companies headquartered in China. A notable move up comes from Sineng which climbed four spots into fourth place due to a 133% shipment growth in 2023, while Growatt closed the top five in the fifth position.
Both Europe and North America have also experienced market growth with a double-digit percentage increase for solar PV inverters. This growth was mainly due to the utility-scale solar market, while residential solar inverter manufacturers faced a slower growth and excess inventory from oversupply in 2022.
Moreover, the US market was led by central inverter manufacturers Sungrow and Power Electronics, while Europe was led by string inverter shipments from Huawei, Sungrow, and SMA.
Another recent report from WoodMackenzie looked at the solar PV tracker market in 2023, which grew by 28% from 2022. Similar to PV inverters, the growth of trackers shipments was primarily due to the utility-scale segment. In 2023, PV tracker shipments reached 92GW.
