IMS Research forecasts PV inverter market in 2014 will reach $ 8.5 billion

IMS Research's latest research report, it is estimated that by 2014, the global PV inverter market will reach $ 8.5 billion, nearly 25% annual growth rate. The report also revealed that in 2014 will be sold over 7 million inverters, and in 2009 was less than 1 million.

IMS Research's new study also found that despite the 2010 ex-factory price of photovoltaic inverter has decreased by about 11%, but the income has more than doubled for the first time exceeded 500 million U.S. dollars. In the long term, despite the price decline will continue, coupled with changes in industrial structure, it is expected that positive growth will continue, and the size of the market in the next five years will double again.

Although the development of the PV inverter market with installed capacity of PV systems is closely related to, but because of product shortages, bottlenecks and original orders doubled and other reasons, making the demand in 2011 inverter PV system installation and basic growth "decoupling." Suppliers and cause significant changes in market share and the supply and demand imbalance. In early 2010 the original supply bottlenecks, with the outbreak of the German market, leading to a serious shortage of inverters. Shortage has seriously affected part of the suppliers, such as SMA lost market share, while Power-One, etc. are to seize the major share.

IMS Research's latest report has confirmed that the current shortage situation has weakened, the inverter has an oversupply of supply and demand trends in the fourth quarter of 2010, inventory remains high and will remain the first quarter of 2011. Photovoltaic Research Center Director Ash Sharma said, "although in early 2010 inverter supply shortages, but IMS Research estimated that more than 2GW inverter is not to be needed, which led to the suppliers and the entire supply chain inventory are the high no less, which is a direct result of orders doubled, also led to a large number of orders were canceled and withdrawn. "

The inverter shortage, many suppliers announced capacity expansions, in 2010 the entire industry capacity over 30GW, twice the previous year. A large expansion of production capacity, the plant's utilization also increased significantly in 2010 to approximately 70%, the third quarter of 2010, close to 90%. IMS Research expects the expansion of production capacity will continue to madness, Ash Sharma said, "inverter suppliers will continue expansion, especially in Asia and North America in 2011 is expected to further increase the 12-15GW capacity, for the uncertain outlook 2012 market, this figure is somewhat surprising. "

Despite the tight supply demand in 2010, but the ex-factory price of inverter actually fell about 11%, although by the distributors who supply situation and profit from many end customers, which results in a feeling of price increases. But the price decline is not due to capacity expansion, but rather the result of a series of changes, as most products are sold to Germany, while making the price lower. In 2011, prices are expected to fall by 10-15% year on year, however, as the market focus shifted from Germany, which will also help to make the average price of a more gentle decline.

To win a major share of the three-phase inverter

Although from the micro grid tie inverter and power optimizers manufacturers to seize the news headlines in 2010, but the biggest change from the traditional architecture of the inverter supplier, a small three-phase product has undergone tremendous changes, especially less than 20kW product . Because installers up to 100-200kW in commercial installations tend to kind of products, so in fact these products are the fastest selling product in 2010 and won the major share. Since MW-scale PV power plants from around the strong demand, more large than 500kW inverters also experienced a rapid growth in 2010, with shipments grew more than 250%.

In the long term, IMS Research forecasts due to various reasons, this will be the market one of the most promising areas, Ash Sharma said, "because many countries are expected utility-scale project demand will surge, including the United States and India, For many suppliers, and even more than 500kW 1MW large central inverters will become increasingly attractive business areas. Moreover, such products are generally highly engineered, and has advanced features and design to attract health profit margins, and prevent stealing market share from low-cost competitors.