For the fifth consecutive year, the analysts at IHS Markit ranked Huawei the No. 1 supplier of photovoltaic inverters globally. The Chinese manufacturer and IT and telecommunications giant has held this top position since 2015. A number of factors account for Huawei’s success in the global PV industry. First, the company’s technology is highly advanced and is bolstered by increasingly leveraging its IT and telecoms expertise to deliver smart PV solutions. Second, the company’s brand is recognized globally for quality while offering an excellent price-performance ratio. And third, the company delivers solutions to scale across the various market segments, from residential solar to C&I and utility-scale PV – and for each one, the company offers a competitive levelized cost of energy (LCOE) to its customers.
At pv magazine, we are honored to work with Huawei for the fourth special edition highlighting the manufacturer’s latest technology, products, solutions, and projects in various markets. Huawei’s success in the global solar PV industry is based on the company’s continuous technological innovation. Most significantly, it has managed to integrate its powerful information and communications technology (ICT) with its PV products – to create smart PV solutions for lower LCOE and O&M costs. This integration has been instrumental for Huawei to become the leader in string inverter deployments. The company now has more than 100 GW of capacity installed, and is the only inverter manufacturer to have crossed this historic milestone. Huawei has ushered in a new era for large-scale PV development, with string inverters now selected as a mainstream option in utility-scale projects, which were previously dominated by central inverters.
Large-scale PV has also evolved in another way: Bifacial modules coupled with tracking systems are increasingly part of the system design. To address the added complexity and boost energy harvest, Huawei is leveraging its artificial intelligence (AI) technology to best integrate its inverters with both bifacial panels and trackers. Huawei’s full-stack all-scenario AI solutions are already being used in the electric power sector, among other various industries, to provide for greater intelligence and higher performance results. In 2020, Huawei will expand the integration of these AI solutions with its smart PV applications to further improve system performance and yield. The company is also building a core architecture for device-edge-cloud synergy to maximize the value of each PV plant and technologically accelerate the industry.
Another frontier for the solar PV industry is the integration of battery storage technology. Here too Huawei is trailblazing ahead with its new LUNA2000 energy storage system, scheduled to be available in the third quarter of this year. Better yet, the manufacturer is adding AI capabilities to this solution to optimize self-consumption in smart homes and offer a safe, lower levelized cost of storage (LCOS).
Be it residential, C&I, or utility-scale, Huawei is pushing the boundaries when it comes to intelligent PV and storage. So, where does this all lead? A continuous drive toward lower LCOE, LCOS and O&M costs, for an accelerated journey to grid parity in markets around the world.
Eckhart K. Gouras, Publisher, pv magazine
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