Solar Inverter Manufacturers

What are the leading inverter manufacturers worldwide?

Markets change, and so the solar inverter market. Asian presence in the solar inverter market was non-existent in the first decade of the 21st century. In the second decade, which is almost halfway through, Asians-meaning China and Japan- have started pushing the incumbent leaders –Europe and USA-aside. Chinese Huawei is now reported to be ready to take the 5th position. In the following paragraphs you will find a brief comment on the major inverter suppliers in the world market. The order of description is approximately correct for 2014, but may already have changed by the time you read this. Note that ranking is either by value of supply or in terms of MW supplied. Here the latter is the reference.

SMA Solar Technology SMA Solar of Germany has been the number one supplier of inverters in the world, and is still holding on. However, for the last four it has been losing a part of its market to new comers from the East. Between 2013 and 2014, its market share dropped by about 3%. It had over 5000 employees 2013 (layoffs may have reduced this figure), and generated a total revenue from all its operation of 932.5 Euro in 2013.

ASEA Brown Boveri (ABB) It is a multinational in  Switzerland. Its operations include robotics, automation, and power. It acquired Power one, the world number two in solar inverters. As a result it is now the world number two in inverters. It has operations in nearly one hundred countries of the world with employees exceeding 150000, and global revenue exceeding $40 billion (2011 figure).

Omron Omron Corporation is a Japanese corporation and has its headquarter in Kyoto (not Tokyo). Its primary business was automation products, but entered the solar energy business with the advent of the solar energy demand. In 2012 it was rated 14th in solar inverter supplies. In 2013 it jumped to 8th position , and in 2014 it was at the third position.

TMEIC TMEIC is a joint venture between Toshiba and Misubishi Electric of japan. Its headquarter is in Japan and has branches USA and Europe. In 2014 (and in 2013) it had 4th position among solar inverter suppliers in the world after Omran (again of Japan). It gained 1% in business value between years 2013 and 2014. And it has approximately 2000 employees. In 2014 it jumped to 5th position from 3rd in 2013

Tabuchi Electric Co This is again a Japanese company with over 3300 employees, headquartered in Osaka, Japan, and with operations worldwide. It was the 5th largest supplier of solar inverters in 2014.

Sungrow Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd is a Chinese supplier of wind and PV products including inverters. Its strength is over 1000 people. Sungrow ranked the 2nd largest PV inverter manufacturer in the world in 2013 by MW shipped. Sungrow has 8000MW installed globally, and in 2013, Photon Magazine ranked our 30kW inverter #1 of all string inverters over 20kW, and #5 of all inverters tested. As per IHS data it was 14th inverter supplier in 2012 and jumped to 5th in 2013. However, the data for 2014 does not show it in the first five inverter supplier.