The head of global inverter giant SMA Group says it is no longer able to compete with Chinese rivals in the home and commercial market in Australia, although the country remains one of its biggest market based on the large scale utility business alone.
Chief executive Jürgen Reinert says the decision to close down its operations in the Australian domestic market, along with other countries, was driven by its inability to match Chinese competitors on costs.
“We cannot compete, to be honest, on any good, reasonable scale,” Reinart says in an interview in the latest episode of Renew Economy’s weekly Energy Insiders podcast.
“We said we would exit some markets, and as Australia had become a smaller market for us on the home and business application, we decided to exit that market, and a few other countries around the world.”
SMA was a pioneer in the industry and once the dominant player in the global inverter market, having a 50 per cent share before Chinese PV manufacturers started to dominate production – and undercut costs – in both solar modules and then inverters.
