Global inverter giant charts record revenue for 2020, “led by Australia”

Global inverter giant SolarEdge has posted record revenue for the full Covid-riven year of 2020, a result the company has credited partly to a bumper year of growth in the Australian solar market.

In its financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2020, SolarEdge announced revenues from solar products of $US327.1 million ($A422 million) and $US1.63 billion, respectively – the latter a record result for the company, just up on 2019 levels.

In a webcast accompanying the results announcement, SolarEdge CEO Zvi Lando said that the company had seen a record final quarter of revenue in Australia, where it had closed out 2020 with 30 per cent year on year growth.

“Our fourth quarter results are reflective of strength in the U.S. residential market and record revenues from outside of Europe and the US, led by Australia,” said Lando in a statement.

As you can see in the chart above, SolarEdge shipped 6.1 gigawatts of AC inverters – a total of 662,000 – over the course of 2020, as well as 15.5 million power optimisers.

As ITK analyst and regular RenewEconomy columnist David Leitch wrote here in May last year, SolarEdge’s trajectory from start-up in 2006 to world’s No 1 inverter company today makes it a company to watch, even if it is competing in relatively small market.

Having quickly dominated the residential inverter market, SolarEdge has more recently been expanding its business to take in battery storage, including via its 2018 acquisition of South Korean battery maker Kokam, and electric vehicle charging.

“Despite the global pandemic, we concluded the year with slight growth in revenues, healthy cash generation and are well positioned for 2021 and beyond, having invested significantly in development of new products to be released this year as well as development of our non-solar businesses, with readiness to supply full powertrain kits for the e-Mobility sector in Europe,” Lando said this week.

In September of 2020, SolarEdge launched a new residential three-phase hybrid inverter range on the Australian market, in a move it said would offer “unprecedented design flexibility” for rooftop solar systems.

As One Step Off The Grid reported, SolarEdge said the hybrid range, which has been expanded to include a 10kW inverter (alongside 8.25kW, 7kW and 5kW), would address typical rooftop solar design restrictions, such as varying panel types and string lengths.