Huawei, Sungrow, and SMA have been the highest solar inverter gamers in 2019 – Greentech Media Information

Huawei, Sungrow and SMA remained market leaders in solar inverters for the fifth year in a row, based on a new Wood Mackenzie report on the inverter market in 2019. These top three suppliers now held the same positions from 2015 to 2019.

Fimer (ABB) posted the most significant market gains last year due to the acquisition of ABB's line of PV inverters. Today, Fimer is the fifth largest supplier of solar PV inverters worldwide and is climbing into the top 10 for the first time.

Power Electronics maintained its # 1 spot in the U.S. market in 2019, despite losing market share to Sungrow.

ITC safe-harboring and increasing retrofits

Worldwide deliveries of PV inverters rose 18 percent last year compared to the previous year, although the inverter market in the Asia-Pacific region, the world's largest inverter market, declined slightly.

Two main factors drove the global growth of the inverter market in 2019.

First, vendors sent a wave of shipments to the U.S. over the past year as developers securely housed inverters and other equipment so their projects could apply for investment tax credit eligibility before the 2020 retirement.

Second, an increase in solar PV inverter retrofits over the past year contributed to the growth of the market as owners and operations and maintenance teams sought to replace older inverters that had reached the end of their life.

Market concentration similar to 2018

Around this time last year, the five largest solar PV inverter suppliers had seen their combined market share decline for the first time since 2013.

New data show that the market concentration of the five largest providers fell again in 2019, if only by one percentage point – to 56 percent of the world market.

The world's ten leading PV inverter suppliers had a market share of 76 percent in 2019, the same percentage as in the previous year. The concentration of the top 10 has been relatively flat since 2015 and is around 75 percent.

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Lindsay Cherry is a solar analyst on Wood Mackenzie's PV systems and technology team. Their report on inverter market shares can be purchased here. (Disclaimer: Wood Mackenzie's primary data collection is based on annual supplier surveys, public filings, project databases, and discussions with relevant stakeholders. Market-based estimates are made if necessary.)