FIMER Acquisition Of ABB’s Solar Inverter Business Complete

Italy’s FIMER has completed acquisition of ABB’s solar inverter business – and is eager to get cracking on next steps.

ABB announced in July last year it was exiting its solar inverter business, which ABB acquired from Power-One back in 2013. At the time, ABB said the sale to FIMER would enable ABB to focus its business portfolio on other growth markets.

Nearly 8 months on and that process is now complete, giving FIMER a presence in 26 countries and 3 manufacturing plants – two in Italy and one in India, with one in each country resulting from the acquisition.

FIMER CEO Filippo Carzaniga said his company’s next level strategy is focused around expansion opportunities into promising growth markets.

“We strongly believe, this significant enlargement of our offering will represent a further step to serve all customers in all PV market segments and it will boost our position in a very competitive arena,” stated Mr. Carzinga.

One of the areas that will receive special attention is the micro-grid sector. A microgrid is a local network of electricity generation and energy storage sources able operate either connected to the mains grid or disconnected from it, such as in the scenario of a blackout. Microgrids are being increasingly considered and integrated in Australia in fringe-of-grid areas.

ABB Inverter Owners And Warranty

The release announcing the acquisition completion didn’t mention anything about warranty coverage for owners of ABB inverters – and there are quite a few of those in Australia as ABB has been a popular brand here. However, in the joint announcement in July last year it was stated:

“FIMER will honor all existing warranties and ABB will compensate FIMER for taking the business and its liabilities over.”

Last year ABB registered revenues of approximately USD $340 million for its solar inverter business. With the acquisition complete, FIMER says it has become the 4th largest supplier of solar inverters in the world and expects more than 7GW of inverter shipments during this year. FIMER has previously stated that prior to the acquisition, it was the world’s eighth largest inverter manufacturer – I assume that means by capacity rather than units shipped given its activities to date.

FIMER has been around since 1942, when it kicked off activities related to welding. It started developing inverter technologies in 1983 and established a solar inverter division in 2007 – but until the acquisition had focused on utility scale solar energy applications.