A new report from IDC Energy Insights suggests that the utility-scale solar photovoltaic inverter market is expected to continue its 60% annual growth rate in the North American market for at least the next three to five years.
The report, ‘Vendor Assessment: Industry Short List for Utility-Scale Photovoltaic Inverters for the North American Market,’ says the market's rapid growth will cause an ‘already crowded field of vendors to multiply as new start-ups and other industrial giants recognize the opportunity.’
‘Thanks to dramatically decreasing production costs and price points, PV systems are more economical today than they ever have been,’ says Sam Jaffe, co-author of the report and research manager for the distributed energy strategies program at IDC Energy Insights. ‘The three fundamental legs that support a buying decision in the inverter field are cost, efficiency and long-term reliability. The inverter is no longer a box of wires and parts bolted onto a PV array – it has become the heart and brains of the system.’
Among the drivers pushing the market for large-scale solar power are ratepayer pressure to increase access to renewable sources of energy; regulatory and policy requirements; government incentives; and declining PV module costs, IDC Energy Insights says. In turn, equipment vendors have been investing heavily in R&D for several years, manifested in new inverter models' boasting higher efficiency, better reliability and greater control.
SOURCE: IDC Energy Insights
