Inverter/Renewable Energy

Enphase Raises US $15M for Micro-Inverters
California, United States [RenewableEnergyWorld.com]
Enphase Energy Inc. announced that it has raised US $15 million in new funding to expand manufacturing of its micro inverter systems. New investor RockPort Capital Partners led the round, and existing institutional investors Third Point Ventures and Applied Ventures LLC, the venture capital arm of Applied Materials Inc., also participated.
"The company's products are industry-defining and Enphase has proven management, a soaring market, and an excellent value proposition. We are committed to helping Enphase reach the next levels of success."-- Todd Wilson, General Partner, RockPort Capital Partners
“We are excited to join the Enphase team,” said Todd Wilson, general partner at RockPort Capital Partners, who will now join the Enphase Energy board of directors. “The company’s products are industry-defining and Enphase has proven management, a soaring market, and an excellent value proposition. We are committed to helping Enphase reach the next levels of success.”
The company had 1000 units of the product in Beta testing until June when they became commercially available. Since then the company said that it has received more than 1000 orders per month. The capital raised in this round will be used as working capital to help meet the level of demand and for Research & Development.
Enphase Energy micro-inverters are installed in commercial and residential solar power systems throughout the continental United States and Hawaii. Enphase products are compatible with most major brands of solar modules and are available from leading solar distributors and installers.
Enphase systems include micro-inverters that convert the DC power from each solar module to grid compliant AC power. In addition, the Enphase micro-inverters send performance information from each module to a secure website for analysis and visualization. Micro-inverters eliminate the need for a large centralized inverter. Enphase micro-inverter Systems have demonstrated energy harvest gains between 5 and 25% over traditional inverters, the company said.
For more on the micro-inverter technology, read our RE Insider Time for a Change: Micro-inverters Improve Performance of Solar Systems from Raghu Belur, co-founder and vice president of marketing at Enphase Energy.


Outstanding! My best wishes to the team at Enphase for an outstanding success and my complements to the backers who have real vision and a lion by the tail. This is exactly the type of technology the world needs now and I expect sales to be significant. So what's next - micro inverters for micro wind systems - mini micro inverters for micro energy recovery systems? There is just no limit for your technology. It reminds me of the laser. At first there were only a few clear applications. Now they are everywhere. I suspect that with continued research, innovation and very clever marketing, Enphase micro inverts can be too!Tom ConlonIron Man Windmill Co. LTD
Comment 1 of 4

A key value to smaller panel mounted inverters will be improved system life with respect to safety. Standards experts are finding that the major cause for failure of grid connected systems worldwide is caused through arc failures. Reducing DC cabling runs and junctions and reducing DC currents will result in safer systems.

I wrote a pretty long article about the pros vs. cons of microinverters here:http://www.solarpowerrocks.com/solar-trends/microinverters-my-turn-the-boring-technical-stuff/

I think micro inverters is a good solution for small grid tie aplications.Here in Mexico, most of the homes just need system below the 1kw, so enphase inverters is a good solution. it can reduce the cost of instalation and the cost of the system.Angel MejiaGEOPOWER