Research and Markets: Photovoltaic Inverter Trends - Estimated Market to be Worth euro2.5 Billion +

DUBLIN--(Business Wire)--
Research and Markets
(http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/d81447/photovoltaic_inver) has
announced the addition of the "Photovoltaic Inverter Trends" report to their
offering.

The PV inverter business is following general PV market trends: the latter being
driven by financial support provided by governments and development of
well-established companies.

Yole Dévelopment has estimated the 2008 PV inverter market at a bit more than
euro2.5 billion, mainly driven by the Spanish solar farm segment and German
market. We do not expect the 2009 PV inverter business to surpass this level.
Effectively, 2009 has faced the crisis and seen Spain cut its subsidies. On the
other hand, 2009 has also seen the birth of more countries ready to encourage PV
as a new source of energy, meaning very interesting feed-in tariffs and loans.
In addition, a new era of standardization in the residential segment of the PV
inverter business has begun.

Newest PV inverter developments have shown interesting results at different
levels:

* evolution of key characteristics (efficiency, cost, reliability)
* use of new materials (SiC, GaN)
* adoption of disruptive technologies like micro-inverters, all those parameters
imply an important variety of players? strategy.

The latest advancements are having and will have consequent impacts on PV
inverters themselves and on the environment into which they evolve: demand from
large installations induces an increase of inverter size and centralization, and
new inverter solutions support atypical plant topologies. Besides this
centralization trend and the objective to provide bigger inverters,
micro-inverters appear as an alternative solution, challenging every
well-established characteristic of classical inverter industry solutions. The
recent acquisition of OKE by SMA is a revealing fact of micro-inverters
introduction on the market. It has subsequently a significant impact on
classical PV inverter business, industry and players.

Nevertheless, the early stage of production adoption of supports Yole
Développement estimation which says that micro-inverter technology will stay
below 1% of 2009 market.

The technological breakthrough and the large opportunity that PV inverter market
represents have a serious impact on players behavior: most of them who
considered the inverter as a final product, now see an interest in capturing
more value through integration of new functionality focused on the return on
investment of the entire installation: Monitoring, Electrical protection,
Services like on-site maintenance, warranty?

Vertical integration of the PV supply chain keeps on evolving and companies are
working together on common objectives for an accurate and complete offer.

WHO SHOULD BUY THIS REPORT

* Inverter manufacturers
* Panel manufacturers
* Integrators
* Start-ups involved in PV inverter business
* Companies involved in inverter business and looking to enter PV inverter
business
* Financial and strategic investors

This report presents the existing PV inverter solutions with the evolution of
the main parameters:

* size,
* efficiency,
* cost and reliability

The reader will be able to understand the main technical challenges, current
solutions and future trends regarding those parameters.

This report also includes an important topic, which has only recently appeared
as a key point for PV inverter business: the evolution of its environment.

PV plants can have highly diversified structures due to:

* local configuration,
* shadows,
* distance between buildings,
* available area,
* size of the installation?

Thus, one of the objectives of this report is to understand the trends for those
architectures, and see their impact on PV inverter systems and on strategy of
the suppliers active in this arena.

Inverter market forecasts presented following our segmentation: residential;
industrial; commercial; and, solar farms ? are analyzed taking into account the
2009 crisis and impact on PV industry.

The report also includes a review of the main players:

* 5 profiles of different company strategies in the PV inverter industry
* Analysis of the vertical integration of PV industry
* Market share of main players

Key Topics Covered:

Glossary

How is This Report Built?

Definition of Terminology Used

Executive Summary

General Introduction

PV Inverter: The System

PV Inverter Environment

PV Inverter Market

PV Inverter Business Play ERS

Impact of Micro-Inverter Technology

General Conclusion

Just some of the Companies Mentioned:

* ABB
* AEG
* Comverge
* Enecsys
* Ferraz Shawmut
* Firstsolar
* GreenPower IC Lab
* Infineon
* Ingeteam
* ISET
* MasterVolt
* MicroSemi
* Mitsubishi Electric
* PetraSolar
* PowerOne
* PVPowered
* Schneider Electric
* SemiSouth
* SEPSA
* Siemens
* SolarMagic
* SolarMax
* Sunpower
* Vincotech
* Yamaichi Electronics

For more information visit
http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/d81447/photovoltaic_inver

Research and Markets
Laura Wood, Senior Manager,
press@researchandmarkets.com
U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907
Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

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