Enphase recently hosted an online commercial summit to discuss how microinverters are gaining popularity in small commercial projects, such as those on schools, in agriculture and in multi-tenant housing. Carol Neslund, vice president of North American sales for Enphase Energy, started with a brief overview of this trend.
“We are continuing to see steady growth in the residential and small commercial space,” she said, “but not at quite the same pace as large commercial and utility scale systems.”
Enphase has penetrated the residential solar market (47%) but the company has also found that many installers are starting to use the Enphase solar inverter in the small commercial sector as well (about 13.4%).
In the online session Selling Solar Value: Strategies for Select Commercial Verticals, several Enphase customers shared how they have used the company’s solar inverters in their commercial sales efforts.
Benjer Petersen, IT manager and project coordinator for Main Street Energy, discussed putting solar on schools in the San Diego Unified School District. The project included installing 3.2 MW of solar on 110 buildings.
“We were looking for the best technology, as well as the best long-term partner for the next 20 or 25 years.”
One challenge of the project was safety, which is obviously a huge consideration for schools. Another issue was constrained space; there wasn’t much room to site a large central inverter.
“With the special circumstances we had to deal with, the Enphase solar inverter was really the best solution we had,” Petersen said.
“The agriculture business accustomed to long-term cost planning,” said Tim Beiler, CEO & general manager at Paradise Energy Solutions (One of Solar Power World’s Top 100 Contractors), “so solar is a natural fit.”
In the presentation, he explained how microinverters allow his company to offer a 99% uptime guarantee, versus 98% with a single solar inverter or string inverters. He said, with these systems, it’s harder to pinpoint failure without extensive testing. A 25-year warranty also appeals to agricultural businesses.
“We appreciate how quick and easy it is to service and troubleshoot Enphase inverters,” he said, “and our customers appreciate it, too.”
John Cano, President of Cano Electric, Inc. says his company has installed over 700 kW of solar on multi-tenant housing in Hawaii with Enphase, and won’t use anything else.
For instance, on the company’s Hale Makana West project, 429 kW of solar was installed on 35 buildings all facing multiple directions.
“We felt Enphase was the best suited for these project, not only for the excellent communications but also for individual performance of the panels,” he said. “The long-term operations and maintenance has really had an impact at the outcome of the project. The support from Enphase has been fantastic.”
View this and other recorded sessions from the Enphase Commercial Summit here.
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