Product: Smart System for Producing and Managing Photovoltaic Solar Energy Developers: Guy Sella, Lior Handelsman, Yoav Galin, Meir Adest, Amir Fishelov Company: SolarEdge Start of Development: 2006
The sun is a freely available, clean and renewable energy source for producing electricity. Advancing technology and the growing global demand have made photovoltaic systems for production of solar energy increasingly efficient and attractive.
SolarEdge, founded in 2006 by five friends, all graduates of an elite army intelligence unit, set out with the objective of making solar energy more affordable and widespread.
The SolarEdge team began developing an innovative solution to enable harvesting of maximum energy from commonly used solar modules. The SolarEdge solution enables maximum energy production from each of the modules in the system while monitoring their performance to ensure optimal long-term yield.
SolarEdge’s technology allows easier and more flexible design of the solar energy system and a more efficient and safer installation.
SolarEdge’s solution is comprised of three components. The first, a smart electronic chip, known as a power optimizer, that is installed on the solar module, maximizes the module’s energy output, monitors its activity, and allows it to switch off the current if necessary. The second element is a highly efficient DC/AC inverter that is light and easy to install. The third element is a monitoring platform that enables low-cost and efficient long-term maintenance.
SolarEdge commenced commercial production of its DC optimized inverter solution in 2010. The company has since shipped more than 6 gigawatts of systems and more than 22 million power optimizers that are installed in over 500 thousand residential,commercial and utility scale sites in approximately 120 countries around the world.
SolarEdge also manufactures additional solutions for maximizing self-consumption of solar energy, such as the StorEdge solution for charging batteries, a control of home appliances to utilize excess solar energy, and the world’s first inverter-integrated electric vehicle charger.
With more than 100 awarded patents and approximately 150 patent applications, SolarEdge is a world leader in the solar energy market. The company is ranked first in the world in sales of single-phase inverters for the residential market, and is among the world’s three largest companies in the field of solar inverters. Since 2015, SolarEdge is publicly traded on the NASDAQ under the SEDG symbol.
