SUNGROW’S HORIZON
Harvesting sunshine With the world fast transitioning to solar energy the outlook for inverter maker Sungrow is more than positive, says Australia Country Manager Joe Zhou who outlined company plans to devote resources to expansion in all market segments.
The 1MW Bass Hill Plaza PV project near Bankstown west of Sydney equipped with Sungrow SG110CX inverters
CONFIDENCE IN THE STRENGTH of the solar energy market is a fine thing and Sungrow has it in spades. And in the coming years, they say, ever more countries will be riding the renewables wave which will set the planet on a strong path to curbing carbon emissions. Demand for clean technologies will soar. “We anticipate a big boom in demand for more climate-friendly energy systems and technologies over the next two to three years,” said Australia Country Manager Joe Zhou. ”And Sungrow is primed for the boom.” His optimism follows an incredible year for the inverter colossus whose meteoric rise in annual capacity from 50GW to 90GW was facilitated by the development of new factories in India and China. Significant investment in plants as well as resources and research with as many as one-third of company staff involved in R&D hammers home Sungrow’s market conviction, and the company is on a sure footing for the future. “Three years ago there were hundreds of solar companies but many have since departed the industry. We recognised the opportunity to step up and focus on R&D and develop higher production standards, and this has enabled us to secure an ever-increasing market share,” he said. Sungrow’s range of solar inverters includes the popular SG series that have helped the company achieve 24 per cent market share within Australia’s residential sector. But it’s just the start, Sungrow plans to “keep pushing the boundaries here”. “Helping the process is Sungrow’s sophisticated iSolarCloud monitoring platform which plays a significant role in maintaining a healthy system by helping customers monitor system performance and ensuring the best solar yield,” Joe explained, listing useful functions that include a platform displaying all historical data which is vital for troubleshooting. Should an inverter report a fault on iSolarCloud, the system also can provide installers tips for solving the issues.
Overcoming hurdles Last year’s pandemic was very tough for the industry and like many others Sungrow suffered from the uncertainty and travel bans. “However, we recognised the challenges early on and took strategic action that enabled our business to not only stabilise but also grow during 2020,” Joe said. “Specifically, we strengthened our online presence by holding regular webinars and training sessions, trouble-shooting, customer meetings and other actions to streamline our day-to-day activities. “We also ensured that we had sufficient stocks in our Greater Sydney warehouse to prevent supply chain issues for customers. With all the challenges put to rest, we delivered 450MW to the Australian market in 2020 in the residential sector alone, an increase of more than 120 per cent on 2019.”
Moving in on the commercial market Now Sungrow is keen to boost its share of the commercial PV market and is promoting the rollout of its CX Premium range inverters as ideally suited for the purpose. “The commercial PV sector is the ideal market for us to increase our footprint. We launched our new CX range of inverters starting from 30kW to 110kW last year and gained good traction for these solutions among EPCs and project developers,” Joe Zhou said. He explained the CX range loaded with top-of-theline features such as multiple MPPTs, standard DC Protection Cover, in-built DC isolator, easy monitoring setup on iSolarCloud etc which makes the installation and commissioning quick and easy. String level monitoring, IV Scanning and the PID recovery feature enable simpler maintenance. Adding a bit of market spin he said with a 10-year warranty and superior pre-sales technical support and after-sales service, Sungrow has “got it all covered”, supporting customers over the entire lifecycle of the
