The recent residential solar industry downturn in the United States and Europe has required some inverter manufacturers to close down operations and cut jobs.
Net-metering changes in the biggest solar state of California resulted in the residential market’s lowest quarter in nearly three years, according to the U.S. Solar Market Insight Q3 2024 report by SEIA and Wood Mackenzie. The report predicted a 19% contraction in residential solar nationwide in 2024.
This slowdown is having a clear impact on some of the biggest residential power electronics manufacturers, including SolarEdge, Enphase and SMA.
In November, Enphase announced it was laying off 17% of its global workforce to streamline operations in the midst of a slowing residential market in both the United States and Europe. The company ended contract manufacturing operations in Mexico, although it continues its partnerships with two contract manufacturing facilities in the United States to serve the domestic market.
SolarEdge also announced layoffs of 16% of its global workforce in January 2024, followed by another 400 employees in July, citing excess inventory and a downturn in the residential market, particularly in Europe, according to Reuters. Then, in November, the company shuttered its large-scale energy storage manufacturing operations, resulting in cuts of 500 more jobs. The company said the measures were meant to increase profitability and financial stability through cost reductions.
“As SolarEdge weathers this difficult period in the company’s history, we are diligently pursuing three main priorities: financial stability, recapturing market share and refocusing on our core solar and storage opportunities,” said Ronen Faier, interim CEO.
SolarEdge’s Q3 2024 solar segment revenues were down 63% from $676.9 million in the same quarter last year.
Another top residential inverter maker, SMA, initiated company-wide restructuring in September 2024 “against the backdrop of a persistently challenging market,” according to its earnings report. It followed up with plans to cut 1,100 jobs worldwide in November.
“The market continues to be very challenging for the home and C&I segments. To counter this trend, we initiated a comprehensive restructuring and transformation program for the entire group at the end of September,” said Jürgen Reinert, CEO of SMA. “In the coming months, we will be laying the financial and organizational foundation to be able to position SMA in the future even more decisively as a leading global provider of systems and solutions. Our approach will be to make the home and C&I segments viable for the future and continue building on our competitive edge in the large scale and project solutions segment.”
In the first nine months of 2024, external sales in SMA’s Home Solutions segment fell by 69.8% year-over-year “due to the lower supply situation combined with high inventories at distributors,” according to a quarterly statement.
Initial hype around IRA domestic manufacturing incentives for inverter-makers, in some cases, has also petered out. Fronius announced its previous plans to make 1 GW of inverters in Portage, Indiana, are temporarily paused “due to current volatilities in the global solar inverter market, which do not presently support the expansion of additional manufacturing locations,” according to a spokesman.
With a new U.S. presidential administration taking over that could place IRA incentives on the chopping block, uncertainty may be the only constant for the residential solar market.
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