Enphase (ENPH)
has been slowly inching its way into the solar service business on
both a residential and commercial scale, and may even tap
utility-scale projects in the near future, according to Marty
Rogers, Enphase's vice president of worldwide customer service and
support. Last year Enphase announced a partnership
with solar crowdfunding platform Mosaic to offer O&M services
to residential solar loan customers. More recently, it announced a commercial O&M offering that combines its C250 commercial microinverter technology with
services that assist the design, installation and maintenance of
solar projects, including cloud-based monitoring and a dedicated
service team.
Next Phase Solar adds both residential and commercial projects to
Enphase's portfolio - about 70 percent of those are commercial
installations, and the remaining 30 percent residential with a
small amount of utility-scale.
"This is a repeatable business and it will be interesting moving
forward since the market is really based on both the increase and
age of installations," said Rogers. "We don't see anyone else
grabbing this market sector, so we decided it was a great move for
us to go after it."
With services that encompass project needs from start to finish,
Enphase claims that its system will reduce financial uncertainty
and capital costs while enhancing system performance and
ultimately the return on investment (ROI). It's sort of like
commercial office space, explained Rogers. If an owner maintains
office space with the highest levels of efficiency, the asset will
stay strong and valuable. However, if the owner leaves the asset
alone, it will decrease in value over time. "What we're saying is:
Let's create asset value over a longer period of time, and include
documentation to prove that it has been maintained - this will
prolong the life and value of the system."
Enphase also revealed a new Energy Management System at
the 2014 Solar Power International (SPI) conference, which is set
to hit the market in the third quarter of 2015. The system
combines its microinverters, storage and monitoring technology and
aims to satisfy the growing commercial and residential
storage-plus-solar market that is set to reach 318 MW by 2018.
"The energy storage business requires service, and it will be
important to have the right teams in the right places to maintain
systems," said Rogers. "This will be huge for those trying to dive
into residential storage, and I can't think of one company that
has a residential fleet for service - but you have got to have
this."
Meg Cichon is an Associate Editor at RenewableEnergyWorld.com,
where she coordinates and edits feature stories, contributed
articles, news stories, opinion pieces and blogs. She also
researches and writes content for RenewableEnergyWorld.com and REW
magazine, and manages REW.com social media. Formerly, she
was an Associate Editor of ideaLaunch in Boston, MA. She holds a
BA in English from the University of Massachusetts and a
certificate in Professional Communications: Writing from Emerson
College.
This article was first
