Enphase to begin Manufacturing Microinverters in the United States

By Christian Roselund

As the latest company to respond to the pending incentives for domestic clean energy manufacturing, Enphase Energy has announced that it plans to begin manufacturing its microinverter product in the United States. Like its other plants, the new domestic Enphase production will be a collaboration between Enphase and contract manufacturing partners. The company plans to open four to six manufacturing lines by the second half of 2023.

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) not only extended and expanded existing incentives for solar, wind, and battery storage deployment, but created a range of incentives for domestic clean energy manufacturing. This includes production-based incentives along the solar, wind, and battery storage supply chains, including solar and wind plant components such as inverters. Enphase expects to access an $0.11 incentive for every watt-AC of inverters that it makes in the United States.

Enphase did not say where in the United States this manufacturing will be located, and if this will be at an existing plant or a new facility. Nor did it list its manufacturing partners, except to state that it was working with two existing partners and one new partner. In the past Enphase has partnered with Flex and other companies to produce its microinverters.

During the company’s quarterly results call on 25 October 2022, CEO Badri Kothandaraman noted that there are still many questions about implementation of the tax credits created through IRA. He further stated that Enphase is working with other companies and industry stakeholders to provide comments to the U.S. Treasury on implementation of these tax credits.

Enphase joins other clean energy manufacturers that have announced expansions in the United States since the passage of the IRA. This includes First Solar, QCells, Toyota, Honda, LG Chem and Panasonic; other companies have not made formal announcements but have told CEA that they are looking for locations to site U.S.-based manufacturing, including Canadian Solar. But an even larger group are still in an exploratory phase,

Source: Enphase Energy’s Third Quarter 2022 Financial Results Conference Call (Enphase)

News coverage: Enphase to manufacture solar inverters in US, spurred by new tax credits
(Canary Media)