Founder and CEO Paul Nahi last night announced his resignation from Enphase, the PV microinverter maker and energy management specialist, which also makes its own AC Battery for energy storage.
Nahi revealed his decision during the company’s most recent earning’s call last night, when second quarter results for this year were discussed. The results showed a revenue improvement over the previous quarter but the company continues a difficult journey to become profitable and continues to face strong competition in the inverter sector of the solar industry.
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“It has been an enormous privilege to lead Enphase since inception and through its growth to become a leading global energy technology company,” Paul Nahi said.
“Our invention of the microinverter and the introduction of module level data monitoring has transformed the global solar energy landscape. Having managed Enphase from a concept through global leadership, I feel the time is right for a new CEO to continue its growth, while Enphase increases market share, expands into new geographies and explores new opportunities.”
While Enphase has deployed more than 650,000 systems in over 100 countries, including 15 million microinverters, the company is still battling to turn a profit in a highly competitive space. The company netted revenues of US$74.7 million in Q2 2017, 36% up from the previous quarter, shipping 224MW (DC) of microinverters. This meant a quarterly reduction in GAAP losses, from US$23.3 million in Q1 to US$12.1 million in Q2.
Battery market developing ‘slower than anticipated’
On the AC Battery product, Enphase COO Badri Kothandaraman said during the earnings call that while pricing for the batteries remains “competitive”, the “total addressable market is developing slower than what we anticipated”.
“However, we did see an uptick demand for the AC battery in Europe during the second quarter,” Kothandaraman said.
“While slow to develop, we expect the worldwide storage market will eventually grow as costs come down and as utilities better understand how to incorporate distributed storage onto the grids.”
Additional reporting by Mark Osborne.