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Enphase Energy is a designer and manufacturer of micro solar inverters, known as "microinverters", are sold primarily into the residential and commercial markets in North America, Europe and Australia. Microinverters convert the direct current power from the solar panel (DC) directly into grid-compatible alternating current (AC) for use or export. Enphase was the first company to successfully market a microinverter on a wide scale, and remains the market leader.〔Eric Wesoff, ("Enphase Dominates the PV Microinverter Channel: Where’s the Competition?" ), Greentech Media, 17 July 2013〕 ==History== A number of companies and institutes had promoted the micro-inverter concept through the 1990s. The basic idea is to reduce the power handling of a conventional inverter design so that it matches the output of a single panel. This so reduces the size of the inverter that it can be placed on the back of the panel, producing an "AC panel". Such a system can be connected directly to the grid, or to each other to produce larger arrays. This contrasts with the traditional solar inverter approach where many panels are connected together in series on the DC-side and then run en-masse to a single larger inverter. Several products based on the micro-inverter concept were introduced in the 1990s and especially the early 2000s, but none were widely successful due to a number of factors. In the aftermath of the 2001 Telecoms crash, Martin Fornage of Cerent Corporation was looking for new projects. When he saw the low performance of the string inverter for the solar array on his ranch, he formed Enphase Energy with another Cerent engineer, Raghu Belur, in 2006. Backed by $100 million in private equity, in 2008 they released their first product, the M175, to moderate success. Their 2nd generation product, 2009's M190, was far more successful, with sales of about 400,000 units in 2009 and early 2010. Enphase quickly grew to 13% marketshare for residential systems by mid-2010, aiming for 20% by year-end.〔Kerry Dolan, ("Enphase's Rooftop Solar Revolution" ), ''Forbes'', 21 October 2010〕 They shipped their 500,000th inverter in early 2011,〔("Enphase Energy surpasses 500,000 solar PV inverter units shipped" )〕 and their 1,000,000th in September of the same year.〔("Journey to the 1,000,000th Microinverter" )〕 The 3rd generation M215 was released in the summer of 2011,〔("Enphase Energy Launches 215-Series Microinverter" ), BusinessWire, 6 June 2011〕 and had sold over a million of all models in 2011, bringing their installed base to 1.55 million inverters and 34.4% market share.〔Eric Wesoff, ("Enphase S-1 Update: PV Microinverter Sales Soar" ), Greentech Media, 25 February 2012〕 A 4th generation, the M250, was released in 2013. , their inverters captured 53.5% market share for residential installations in the US, which represents 72% of the entire world micro-inverter market.〔("Solar Microinverter Shipments to Quadruple and Reach 2.1 Gigawatts in 2017" ), IHS Electronics and Media, 27 August 2013〕 This makes them the sixth largest inverter manufacturer, of any kind, worldwide.〔("PV Inverter Supplier Base Fragments in 2012" ), IHS Electronics and Media, 2 May 2013〕 Enphase has experimented with the European market starting in France and offering sales in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Italy.〔Jeff St. John, ("Microinverter Wars: Enecsys and Enphase Go Trans-Atlantic" ), Greentech Media, 6 December 2011〕 However, they had considerably more success in the UK, and later, Australia. , approximately 20% of their sales is outside North America.〔Loralee Stevens, ("Enphase Energy continues momentum" ), ''North Bay Business Journal'', 2 September 2013〕 Enphase continues to see increasing pricing pressure due to rapidly falling prices in the inverter market. In spite of several effects that should cause stability, prices for inverters are predicted to fall 11% during 2013. Market leaders, especially, face continued market share erosion in the face of newer companies, most of them from the far east.〔Tildy Bayar,("Solar Photovoltaic Inverter Prices to Fall Due to Fierce Global Competition" ), REWorld, 1 August 2013〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Enphase Energy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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