Microinverter, energy storage and EV charger manufacturer Enphase Energy has announced it will be slashing its global team by approximately 17%, and cutting other non-essential expenses.
Despite an initial restructuring plan unveiled in December 2023 and CEO Badri Kothandaraman’s hopes early this year the company was starting to climb out of “the bottom”, he said Enphase needed to make further adjustments.
According to the related SEC filing, as well as contractor and employee cuts, Enphase will cease contract manufacturing in Guadalajara, Mexico, but continue manufacturing from two locations in the United States (South Carolina and Texas), one in India (Chennai), and one in China. The company says its global capacity for microinverters will remain at approximately 7.25 million units per quarter, of which approximately 5 million units of manufacturing capacity is in the USA.
“We are decreasing spending in every department by reducing headcount, non-people related expenditures, or both,” stated Mr Kothandaraman. “These actions are not a reflection of poor employee performance, but we believe they are necessary in the current market environment.”
Mr. Kothandaraman said Enphase is committed to supporting employees losing their jobs with comprehensive severance packages including a minimum of 13 weeks of pay, extended healthcare benefits where applicable, and career transition resources.
Trump Presidency A Factor?
Mr. Kothandaraman says no.
“These decisions are grounded in the current economic landscape, not due to recent election outcomes,” he stated. “While the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has supported U.S.-based manufacturing, our primary focus remains on creating a resilient and self-sustaining business model that will drive our long-term success.”
Donald Trump has previously pledged to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, which among other things provides advanced manufacturing production tax credits. This went into effect at the beginning of 2023 and was to run through to the end of 2032. While it would be difficult to ditch given the benefits, rules around the 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit could be tightened.
Enphase Q3 2024 Performance
At the end of October, Enphase reported revenue of USD $380.9 million for Q3 2024. This was a marked improvement compared to $303.5 million in the second quarter of 2024, but well down on Q3 2023’s $551 million.
The firm shipped 172.9 megawatt-hours of Enphase IQ Batteries in the third quarter of 2024, compared to 120.2 megawatt-hours in the second quarter. The company shipped approximately 1.7 million Enphase microinverters in Q3 (approximately 730 megawatts DC) compared to 1.4 million units in Q2.
Among Enphase business highlights for Q3 in terms of Australia, the company boosted the standard warranty here for its IQ8 microinverters from 15 years to 25 years. It also started shipping IQ8X microinverters for higher DC input voltage solar panels.
Looking ahead, Enphase expects Q4 2024 revenue to be within a range of $360.0 million to $400.0 million (Q4 2023: $302.6 million), which includes shipments of 140 to 160 megawatt-hours of IQ Batteries. This would be well up on Q4 2023 (80.7 MWh), but down on Q3 this year.
This isn’t the first occasion Enphase has hit particularly trying times and Mr. Kothandaraman is widely credited for pulling the company out trouble some years ago. He joined Enphase in April 2017 as chief operating officer and in September 2017 was appointed president and CEO of the firm.
Nor is Enphase the only well-known solar inverter manufacturer shedding staff or preparing to – for example, Fronius, SolarEdge and SMA have reduced or are in the midst of reducing their headcounts.
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The announcement was 3 days after the election and Trump’s win. While it could just be a coincidence, the timing is suspicious.
The offshore wind industry in America, which relies heavily on government subsidies, has seen a significant drop in value on the share market in response to Trump’s win. It’s also expected that Trump will immediately act to remove America from the Paris Climate Accord. Since China’s emissions are still increasing, India’s participation is conditional on billions in foreign aid, and between them they produce roughly 42% of global CO2 emissions, many can’t see any benefit in the accord.
The COP29 in Azerbaijan which starts … today (?) should be rather interesting!
Hi George,
The interesting part is that out of that 42% of emissions, a great deal of it belongs to the developed economies who use China as the world’s factory, plus arguably the shipping & burning of fossil energy we sell them to help manufacture the fast fashion & mindless consumer goods our economy is based on.
Certainly far too many Western corporations have outsourced production to China to increase their profit margins – cheap or free labour, minimal or no environmental legislation etc. The only way to keep employment within a country, and avoid exporting environmental issues, is to make it non-viable.
A change in culture – eliminating wear and toss fashion, or mindless consumer goods, would help too, but since that’s incomprehensible to me I’m the wrong one to suggest how!
Oddly enough there seems to be a certain section of society that holds to the view that while draconian standards must be held to here, as long as ‘it’ happens over there it’s no longer a problem. Then again many seem to take the view that such standards should have an exception for them so …
Hi George,
I think it would help if the labour movement was able to organise the workers in every factory, but governments both sides of the pacific are hostile to that in the same way they’re hostile to democracy, some more openly than others.
It would be good if being frugal became fashionable, but the influencers aren’t going to get paid for that.
The French are at least mandating that things have a warranted life displayed on the shelf. You know what you’re buying that way.