This Q&A includes excerpts from one of our most-downloaded podcasts. Listen to this and other Solar Speaks podcasts at https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/solar-speaks-podcast-series/.
Q: Can you start off by telling us a little about Advanced Energy?
A: Advanced Energy is an American-based company with facilities in Fort Collins, Colo., and Bend, Ore. We’ve been in business for 30 years. The solar division is approximately half of Advanced Energy, the other half being in power conditioning for equipment in the semiconductor business. We’ve been active in the solar business, specifically in North America, in all three market segments—residential, commercial and utility. We’ve had strong growth in all of these as the North American market has grown over the past couple of years.
Additionally, we’ve made some strong agreements with companies in China and India to grow our international presence—a key initiative of the corporation as we look to new markets for PV.
We’ve also announced our 500TX product, a 500-kW solar inverter that we expect will be a strong player in the larger commercial and utility market. It’s had good success since its initial launch in the first half of this year. A clean energy project in New Jersey was one of the first programs to use the 500TX, and we’re excited to have a number of such key stakeholder projects.
Q: What is Advanced Energy excited about going into 2013?
A: We continue to be excited about the North American market, our home market and one of strong growth. The utility business continues to grow, and we have a solid presence there. We have deep relationships with a number of strong players — developers, EPCs and also the end customer, the utility. We believe the utility market will be a strong one for us going forward. But the commercial market is also strong, even with its ups and downs with some policy changes — in New Jersey specifically. But there’s also new states coming on board—New York, Massachusetts and Maryland—that continue to be strong in the commercial segment. Since we have strong presence in all of these regions, we feel we’ll be able to capitalize on those new markets as they continue to grow.
Q: What trends do you see in the U.S. solar industry?
A: One big trend is continually dropping module costs. I think that’s really the catalyst for a lot of the growth we see in the overall solar industry. Also, there’s a strong trend toward PPAs extending from what was once a utility and commercial market down into the residential market. PPAs have become a strong driver for the industry as a whole.
There’s also stronger grid-interconnection requirements. As the utility market continues to grow, we’re seeing higher and higher penetration of PV. That requires higher and higher levels of specific grid controls. Advanced Energy has spent a lot of resources to make sure that our products can fully take advantage of specific grid-control requirements and perform to the optimum level that the utilities require.
Q: What would you say are some of the greatest inverter challenges for the industry?
A: One of the biggest challenges is continuing to drive down the cost curve. We’ve been able to do that successfully with changes in our manufacturing strategies, some of which I outlined in discussing our Ontario facility. We’ve also made close partnerships with vendors and maintained these relationships with over the years. That continued challenge of providing higher value at a lower cost is a challenge to everyone in the industry. I think we’re uniquely situated to ride that wave successfully.
Also, grid penetration continues to be
discussed, but has not been as big of an issue as some have anticipated. You see grid penetration being much higher in Germany and Japan, for instance, without adversely affecting the grid. But it’s an educational process for us and others in the PV market to ensure the ultimate consumers and policy makers that the grid penetration levels we’re talking about won’t be disruptive to the grid and are, in fact, stabilizing to the grid as a whole.
Q: How does Advanced Energy work to resolve these challenges?
A: Education by AE and other industry leaders is a positive thing. We do that through a number of mechanisms. We’re aggressive in putting out white papers on our webpage that cover a range of topics, such as grid interconnection. We’re also active in speaking at conferences. We have a strong technical team that we love to get out in front of customers and industry experts and present the history and the technology that we at AE are very proud of.
Q: How will the recent election affect the solar industry?
A: I think solar is here for the long haul. There are always changes in any energy market based upon price and policy. But the solar market is here to stay. It’s a large market with active and aggressive growth curves. We’re positive about the future. It continues to have a declining cost structure that we see projected out for years to come. New financing mechanisms are opening up the market to more customer segments. This enables people at any level to participate in the solar revolution. SPW
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The actual Date for this article is October 12, 2012