SolarEdge and the new phase of the market: when differentiators become requirements.

The combination of technological advancement, cost reduction, and greater knowledge of the Brazilian market has opened a new phase for SolarEdge.

After building its reputation primarily associated with efficiency, safety, and monitoring, the manufacturer has expanded its competitiveness and seeks to bring its solutions to a greater number of photovoltaic projects.

In an interview with Canal Solar executives pointed out that this movement also reflects a transformation of the market itself, marked by more discerning integrators and consumers who are more informed about the technologies available.

“The Brazilian photovoltaic market has undergone a maturation process, and today we find integrators who are much more discerning in choosing the technologies they offer to their clients. In this scenario, SolarEdge maintains a consistent presence in the country and a global production and operation structure that allows us to serve the market with quality, safety, and predictability,” highlights Pedro Paulo Alves, Country Manager of SolarEdge in Brazil.

According to the executive, this change has also reached the end consumer and has begun to influence the criteria considered in the purchasing decision.

“The end consumer has also changed. They have more access to information, are better aware of the available technologies, and are more attentive to the quality and performance of the system they are acquiring. This means that the integrator needs to look less and less at just price and power and more and more at the value that the solution will deliver to the client throughout the project's lifespan,” adds Alves.

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It is in this environment that the manufacturer seeks to combine the attributes traditionally associated with its technology with greater economic competitiveness in the Brazilian market.

“SolarEdge offers an economical solution without compromising what every consumer deserves: safety, efficiency, and quality. Over time, the company has deepened its understanding of the Brazilian market and expanded its investments in the country, making its technology increasingly accessible and aligned with the realities and needs of the market,” says Lidia Barreto, Marketing Manager at SolarEdge.

More competitive prices

One of the main reflections of this evolution is in the prices. According to Anderson de Paulo, Commercial Director of SolarEdge, the price of the solution is currently similar to other players in the market.

“The market has a mindset of buying watt-peak. When we look at the system's production over time and the low mismatch effect of the plant, the watt-hour is higher. The investment is a little higher, but the watt-hour per real from SolarEdge is better,” explains de Paulo.

The manufacturer's proposal is to broaden the economic analysis beyond the initial investment, incorporating energy production throughout the installation's lifespan and the costs related to operation and maintenance.

According to the director, this comparison becomes even more relevant when systems with equivalent security characteristics are placed side-by-side. He argues that by considering the inclusion of external fast shutdown devices (RSDs) in other architectures, the price difference can be significantly reduced.

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Experience helps reduce costs.

According to de Paulo, the increased competitiveness achieved by the manufacturer is directly related to the learning curve accumulated since 2006.

Module-level optimization has been present in SolarEdge's architecture since its inception. Currently, the company works with the fifth generation of optimizers, the result of successive evolutions of the equipment over two decades.

“SolarEdge has been working with optimization systems for 20 years, since its founding. It's a system that was created, designed, and patented. We are already on the fifth generation of optimizers. We keep getting better at what we do, reducing production costs and increasing product efficiency,” says de Paulo.

The accumulated experience also allowed the company to incorporate more security features into the architecture while making progress in reducing costs.

“This learning curve reduces the financial impact. Each year we manage to reduce costs and become more competitive. It's not simply a market repositioning, but an adaptation that experience has allowed us to make,” he adds.

Security keeps pace with technological evolution.

While striving to make its solutions more competitive, SolarEdge maintains security as one of the cornerstones of its architecture.

The company has incorporated technologies such as Rapid Shutdown and AFCI since the initial development of its products, before these features gained wider attention in discussions within the Brazilian photovoltaic market.

“Security has never been a differentiator; it has always been part of the solution's identity. Efficiency has always been key, with advanced monitoring. Security used to be a bonus, which has now become a requirement,” says Lidia.

According to the executive, the company's strategy has always been linked to anticipating demands that could gain relevance with the evolution of the sector.

"Since its founding in 2006, SolarEdge has delivered solutions with Rapid Shutdown and AFCI, long before this became an issue, for example, in Brazil," he points out.

This movement is now beginning to reach other fronts. One of them is cybersecurity, a topic that is gaining importance as inverters, monitoring systems, and other equipment become increasingly connected.

SolarEdge holds a cybersecurity certification granted by the German VDE. According to Lidia, although the subject is not yet a frequent topic in Brazil, it is already part of the reality in the North American, European, and Asian markets.

"SolarEdge goes beyond what the market demands today, anticipating tomorrow's needs and always thinking long-term," he says.

Efficiency, safety and competitiveness

The price evolution adds a new component to the positioning SolarEdge has built over the last 20 years.

While efficiency, monitoring, and security have been central to the manufacturer's mission since its inception, reduced production costs and the maturation of its Brazilian operations now allow it to place greater weight on economic competitiveness in this equation.

For the company, this also means broadening the way the return on investment of a photovoltaic system is evaluated. In addition to the cost per watt-peak installed, SolarEdge argues that the analysis should consider the energy produced over the years, operating and maintenance costs, and the technologies incorporated into the installation.

The combination of these factors is the manufacturer's bet for a new stage of growth in Brazil: making an architecture developed over two decades more accessible, while preserving the efficiency, safety, and technology attributes that have accompanied the brand since its inception.

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