How important is the European market for Sungrow's inverter business, and which countries or regions stand out?
The European business is definitely one of the most important markets for Sungrow worldwide, probably in the top three. Within Europe, the focus in Western Europe is on string inverters. We have a strong presence in all European regions and we are growing, especially in the commercial and industrial (C&I) business, where we are among the top players in most European countries. In residential products, we already have a very strong presence in most Western European countries and are now also focusing on the Eastern European region.
Grid integration is becoming increasingly important, especially in the C&I segment. What solutions does Sungrow offer?
Grid integration is absolutely critical, especially now that there are many possibilities for direct marketing, buying and selling energy, and providing frequency control and ancillary services with batteries. This is why we developed the PowerStack and the PowerKeeper, two approaches to the same problem: how can companies use their grid connection not only to produce energy, but also to control their load, buy and sell energy, or provide reactive power and frequency control services in the low voltage segment.
The PowerStack is an AC-coupled cabinet storage system. The PowerKeeper is a DC-stackable battery, very simple for residential installers wanting to move into C&I, because it follows the same installation process but allows for grid control and grid integration. We believe both PV inverters and hybrid inverters will be important for the future market. In some regions the AC-coupled battery is required. In others, such as Italy, we see a shift towards DC-coupled hybrid inverters, because with an AC-stackable battery and a PV inverter, you need to declare both to the grid provider and pay double the grid connection fee.
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We are not focusing on single products alone, but see ourselves more as a system solution provider. The only thing we still do not offer is a direct marketing energy market service. One particular highlight here is our Logger 1000 with an AI mode. Customers with a dynamic tariff can set it up in this box, and the AI will decide when to buy and sell energy. For full direct marketing, we cooperate with regional partners via local Modbus protocols. These are public, and even open source platforms such as Home Assistant use them. Partners are important because without them no one can provide a solution that is perfect for every regional market.
The cybersecurity debate in Europe is intensifying with the Cyber Resilience Act and NIS2. How does this affect Sungrow?
Sungrow has paid a great deal of attention to this and we are very well positioned. We have already achieved the major compliance requirements and published official documents on our website explaining our plan and certifications. Our software, servers and software signing are all handled in Europe by European entities. At Intersolar, we announced that our latest iSolarCloud version will run only on EU servers. Software development, release, signing, publishing and hosting are all based in Europe. This situation actually makes us a much better partner for our customers. We have a very strong local presence, not only on the hardware side with production in Poland, but also on the software and infrastructure side.
Your new factory in Poland is under construction. When do you expect to start production?
We are calculating with a Q1 or Q2 opening, somewhere in spring. The products manufactured there will include smaller products from our distribution business. You can see a clear trend over the last few years. Since we opened our first offices in Europe in 2011, we have grown our local presence significantly. First sales and service, then a local warehouse in Venlo, three large service repair centres with spare parts, and R&D centres for EV charger hardware and hydrogen development, all in Europe. Production is a logical next step. Our European team already has more than 900 people, and with the new production line in Poland many more will follow.
There has been discussion about EU financing rules potentially excluding Chinese inverter manufacturers from project financing. Is this affecting Sungrow's business?
As far as I know, there is no official communication from the European Commission at the moment. It mainly concerns our utility business, and we do not have many projects that are affected. As soon as fixed rules are in place, we can assess it better. It is not affecting the C&I business.
In a highly competitive PV market, what is Sungrow's unique selling proposition for string inverters?
Sungrow takes great pride in product excellence. We focus on product quality, reliability and safety by design. We have new safety features such as explosion-proof designs, arc-fault circuit interrupter (AFCI) and potential-induced degradation (PID) functions and rapid shutdown technology. In residential, our Energy Bridge provides integrated backup solutions certified to replace the main breaker of the household. However, the customer is no longer choosing just the product. The customer is choosing the company. That is why we have a whole-company approach: local presence with local people speaking the local language, from pre-sales to after-sales support, European software and European production. The whole company should be the reason to buy Sungrow, not only a specific product USP.
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This goes together with bankability: large production capacity, a sustainable business, maintaining delivery timelines and providing the right support in the project delivery phase. All of these aspects count much more than product pricing alone. If you do not have a reliable partner that can follow through with more than just a product, that is a risk for the customer. The market has become more challenging, and the customer realises that the choice has to be made not only for the product but for the whole company.
Interview by Hans-Christoph Neidlein
See also our interviews with Fronius and Solaredge and our upcoming background article
