On January 25th, 2012 IMS Research (Wellingborough, U.K.) released the results of a survey of PV inverter customers which found that while there is a strong brand preference for European- and North American-made inverters, 30% of respondents felt that Chinese inverters were of acceptable quality.

The company's "PV Inverter Customer Opinions & Requirements Survey" report reveals that market leader SMA Solar Technology AG (Niestetal, Germany) remains the clear brand leader. The survey also found that PV inverter customers seek increased reliability, functionality and yields, with more than half willing to pay a premium for a 1% increase in yield.

"The most important product feature for string inverters was having more MPPT channels and a wider MPP range," noted IMS Research Market Analyst Cormac Gilligan, a co-author of the report.

"Whilst central inverter customers also want this, they see improved system monitoring and fault detection of ultimate importance to them."


Survey of installers, distributors, integrators, EPCs

IMS Research's results are based on a survey of more than 400 inverter consumers conducted during the fourth quarter of 2011. The company surveyed installers, distributors, wholesalers, integrators and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) companies.


Three-phase string inverters remain the most popular

The company notes that three-phase string inverters are popular choices for relatively large plants, with more than 70% of respondents indicating that they would consider using a string inverter for a PV plant over 750 kW in size. More than 30% stated that they would use string inverters to build projects larger than 1 MW.

IMS Research also found a desire for in-depth diagnostics, with nearly 70% of customers wanting monitoring diagnostics at the string level, and 15% wanting module-level monitoring.

While 10% of respondents intend to use microinverters for some of their projects in the next 12-24 months, the survey also found that many customers resist using microinverters due to their higher cost and because they remain a new and unproven technology.

2012-01-30| Courtesy: IMS Research; Image: SMA Solar Technology AG | solarserver.com © Heindl Server GmbH

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