2024 keeps getting tougher for Israel-headquartered solar manufacturer SolarEdge, with hundreds more staff to be shown the door.
Founded in 2006, SolarEdge produces solar panel optimizers, inverters, home batteries and EV chargers. The company’s main claim to fame was being the first to successfully commercialise power optimizers; a type of Module Level Power Electronics (MLPE) device. Not to be confused with microinverters, power optimizers don’t replace an inverter but work with it; maximizing energy harvesting.
Like many companies riding the solar coaster, SolarEdge has seen its share of ups and downs; but this year been particularly brutal. The firm says a downturn at the end of last year and beginning of 2024 led to an accumulation of excess inventory in its distribution channels; particularly in Europe.
In late January this year, the company announced a restructuring plan that included approximately 900 employees, or 16% of its workforce, being laid off – around 500 of those in manufacturing. This followed discontinuation of manufacturing in Mexico and scaling back of manufacturing capacity in China.
According to the firm’s financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2024, revenues from the company’s solar segment were USD $190.1 million, down 79% from $908.5 million during Q1, 2023. Compared to Q1, 2023, shipments in the first quarter of this year were pretty dismal:
- Optimizers (units): down ~83%
- Inverters (units): down ~79%
- Batteries (MWh): down ~42%
Second quarter results are yet to be released, but SolarEdge has previously estimated revenues from its solar segment to be within the range of $225 million to $255 million during Q2. However, since then was news in June that a customer had filed for bankruptcy and SolarEdge may wear an $11.4 million loss. Whether that revenue was expected in Q2 isn’t clear.
Hundreds More Layoffs Announced
In a letter earlier this week, SolarEdge CEO Zvi Lando delivered more bad news for staff concerning the hard road head.
“The most significant and painful measure is a reduction in our workforce, which will impact approximately 400 employees, of which 200 are in Israel,” he wrote. “The action is being taken across all departments, and includes a reduction in both headcount and discretionary spending.”
Acknowledging the impact this would have on affected employees, Mr. Lando said it was why the company “preferred to be more cautious in the initial reduction in force earlier this year.”
Stock Market Punishment
We mentioned back in May that SolarEdge shares were trading at USD $49.47 at the time, which was the lowest for at least 5 years and around 86% down from a high of ~$365 in late 2021. Share value has continued to head south, closing at $28.11 yesterday. But this was up on the lowest this year – $25.05 in early July.
Moving Past The Carnage
Mr. Lando said the company will be focusing on:
- Increasing customer satisfaction.
- Delivering next generations of existing products.
- Expanding into new market segments such as ground mount and small-scale utility solar, commercial batteries and trackers.
- Controlled spending and increased efficiencies.
“Our team has extensive industry experience, and we understand that our market is volatile and cyclical. I believe, that in the not-too-distant future, demand for renewable energy worldwide will rise more rapidly,” he stated. “The SolarEdge strategy, vision and mission, therefore, remain unchanged.”
Solar Swings And Roundabouts
A light at the end of the tunnel that may not be an oncoming train is SolarEdge’s activities in the USA.
“In North America, we are beginning to see some slight growth in installation rates, and we continue to ramp up our US manufacturing capacity,” said Mr. Lando. “This is a major opportunity both for SolarEdge and for our customers.”
SolarEdge’s first facility in Austin, Texas, opened late last year and hit a quarterly manufacturing run rate of 50,000 Home Hub Inverters in Q2 this year. A second facility in Seminole, Florida, shipped 20,000 power optimizers during the quarter.
“SolarEdge has already helped to create ~1,500 new jobs, with the expectation that this will increase to ~1,750 jobs across the two facilities by the end of 2024,” stated the firm last week.
The company set up manufacturing in the USA following incentives offered by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022.
The jobs created in the USA is good news, but no comfort to those who have or are about to lose theirs.
About Michael Bloch
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I wonder if there is any boycotting going on. The war in Gaza was one reason I didn’t get a solar edge EV charger, and now I’m considering a 2nd pv system, and although I would like it to integrate with the 1st, not keen on supporting an Israeli company.
Yes, it could be boycotting happening considering the reports of lower sales in Europe.
I like to encourage diversifications and developmemts in solar and other renewables.
BUT ! I will not knowingly support any business which returns profits to Israel and its current government.
I hope there are other ethical developers who can continue and improve on Solar Edge’s work.
Enphase share price is down 40% for the year, are we also going to see an article on their downturn? Or is Solarquotes pro Enphase and anti Solaredge. This site looks to be getting pretty bias.
Q. “is Solarquotes pro Enphase and anti Solaredge”
A. SolarQuotes is independent.
Have a look what ChatGPT thinks.
Or read Ronald’s commentary on the Enphase share price from a few years back.
Or look at Anthony praising the SolarEdge ecosystem and app from last week.
I’m less concerned by the pro-Enphase and anti-Solaredge as I am the presence of anti-Semitic posts on this site!
It is very very hard not to support Israel, let alone oppose them, when they’re the victim of murder, rape etc. Add that Hamas is using their own people as human shields, and it’s very hard to have any tolerance for those appearing to be pro-terrorist, to say nothing of those who clearly are!
For regular homeowners (typically 6.6 to 15kW) it is hard to justify the cost of paying extra to buy panel level-optimised system. A novelty for sure to be able to see the output of each panel but not much financial incentive. The old narrative of “one shaded panel drags down the performance of the whole string” is slowly losing grounds as panels these days are all half-cut technology and come with 2 to 3 bypass diodes (even 4, eg REC Pure R) effectively turning your 440W panel into 6 small chunks of 73W cells so to speak. You can afford to have some sweeping shade on your panels and lose 1/6th or 2/3rd of your panel output and still have the rest of the panel working normally. I don’t think there is a large enough customer base asking for more granular control of their panel output by adding multiple power electronics (optimisers) on their roof.
On the storage side, there are many budget-friendly and scalable batteries from China (e.g. Sungrow which Finn has recently reviewed) that offer DC or AC-coupled solutions, unlike SolarEdge which prefers to be within its own ecosystem. I see SE as the iPhone of the inverter market.
One way to increase sales in the Australian market will be to convince legislators to make rapid shutdown mandatory (similar to UL3741 in the US market) combined with the narrative of “600V DC on your roof bad”
Going forward, SolarEdge should focus more on the software solutions to help homeowners maximise their return by adapting their inverters to the changing electricity tariffs such as sun tax, demand charges, ToU, etc. I assume they are already doing it. This is where the market is heading; optimisation of existing and new solar assets (PV and storage) instead of just throwing a large dumb PV system with no storage. On the hardware side, I hope SolarEdge will bring budget-friendly optimiser and storage solutions in future.
Disclaimer: I was doing solar between 2015-2023. I have moved to a different industry.