Santak series of photovoltaic inverters

In 2003, Taiwan's Santak began to produce photovoltaic inverters, focusing on the European market; at that time, it always ranked first in sales among Chinese photovoltaic inverter companies.

In 2007, we transferred key personnel from UPS and other departments to set up a photovoltaic inverter R&D center in Shenzhen;

In 2008, Santak Electronics' parent company, Phoenix Group, was acquired by Eaton. However, photovoltaics was not Eaton's main business and was not taken seriously. The photovoltaic R&D department was disbanded, and these talents started their own businesses or joined other emerging companies.

Time flies, and the former Santak people have become the core force or founders of China's inverter companies. At the beginning, Santak's domestic inverter team had about 40 people. Dai Guofeng of Aiso took more than 10 people away, more than 10 people in Samil, and nearly 10 people in Growatt. Later, Aiso and Megavolt merged and were acquired by SMA. Some of the core members of the Aiso team stayed in SMA, and some were poached by Goodway, Sanjing, Growatt, etc. Samil was due to business reasons. The R&D and sales teams were separated to start their own businesses, and most of them joined Growatt. Currently, there are nearly 20 former Santak R&D people in Growatt. The origin of Santak photovoltaic inverter manufacturers:

At present, in the domestic distributed photovoltaic market, Santak inverter companies have an absolute dominant position, with sales accounting for more than 80% of the market share, and have formed a market structure of 3 large and 8 small ones. The heads of various Santak inverter companies have inherited and absorbed Santak Electronics' traditional culture of regarding quality as life and customer-centricity, and have injected new elements according to the development of the situation.

The three largest companies with annual sales of over 500 million yuan are:

Shenzhen Growatt, Jiangsu GoodWe, Guangzhou Sanjing;

The eight companies with annual sales of 50-500 million yuan are:

Megavolt Aiso, Shenzhen Shouhang, Maoshuo, Langtuo, Omnik, Hongpeng, INVT, and Shengnengjie.

1

Esso, Omnik, Megavolt Esso, SMA

As the head of Santak's R&D department in Shenzhen, Dai Guofeng is undoubtedly a leading figure in the domestic inverter industry. Most of the domestic technical personnel are his colleagues or juniors.

In 2009, Dai Guofeng, Zhao Lei, Ning Ning and others co-founded Aiso New Energy. As soon as the product came out, the European market was immediately opened up, and the Australian government launched huge subsidies. From the end of 2009 to the end of 2011, Aiso was the best "dragon" in the inverter industry. However, Ning Ning and Zhao Lei had different ideas on whether to develop large machines, and the equally stubborn two people parted ways. Ning Ning chose to cooperate with Dai Guofeng to develop large machines, while Zhao Lei went far away and later founded Omnik in Suzhou, and later merged with Zhaofu Aiso. Later, Zhaofu Aiso was acquired by SMA. Dai Guofeng returned to Shenzhen to start his second business, and cooperated with Liu Zhankuan, the former R&D director of Shanyi, and others to establish EN+ charging piles.

2

Shanyi, Shouhang

Cui Peiju, who was born in the Chinese Academy of Sciences and worked in electronics and power for foreign companies and Australia for 8 years, had a dream in mind. In 2008, he established Samil New Energy in a joint venture with Samil Electronics to produce inverters.

The string inverter was settled in Wuxi, and the technical staff was the Santak team led by Liu Zhankuan; the centralized inverter was in Shenzhen, and the technical staff was the Emerson team led by Zhuang Wuguo. Originally, it was intended to supply the Korean market, but Samil's first customer was a German. When they launched the first generation of home-oriented unidirectional inverter Solar River, the Korean market was sluggish, and Samil Electronics' Korean sales channel advantage was no longer there, but the European market opened up. After personally inspecting the factory, the German customer placed the first batch of 500 inverter orders with Samil. Through the German market as a springboard, it opened up the situation in Italy, and quickly became the sales champion after the Australian market was opened up. From 2011 to 2013, Samil's string inverter exports have always ranked first in China.

Due to operational difficulties and other reasons, from 2013 to 2014, many R&D and sales personnel of Shanyi resigned to start their own businesses. International Sales Director Zhong Qizheng and some sales and technical personnel joined Shenzhen Shouhang New Energy. Li Shun, who was in charge of North American models, joined Sungrow Power Supply and was responsible for the development of medium-power string inverters. R&D Director Liu Zhankuan and others followed Dai Guofeng to Shenzhen to make charging piles.

3

Characteristics of Santak Group Enterprises

1. Demand perfection in product quality

The R&D department is responsible for product quality and has the final say over device selection, procurement, and production. If a problem is found, no matter how small it is, the product will not be shipped. Sometimes, they would rather delay delivery and face order cancellation or fines. Customer-centric, whether in product planning and development or after-sales customer service, customers are always put first.

2. Focus on photovoltaic inverter and energy storage product lines

Currently, photovoltaics is an industry that relies on policy subsidies to survive. There are many power electronics product lines, and product diversification helps control risks. Therefore, some companies have turned to investing in product lines such as charging piles. Surprisingly, my country's distributed forest photovoltaic subsidies have not decreased. Instead, various policies have been tilted towards distributed. With the decline in prices of components and other materials, distributed photovoltaics has ushered in a market explosion.

3. Pay attention to market promotion and guidance

Completely different from building ground power stations, the main customer groups of distributed photovoltaics are individuals and small and medium-sized business owners, who have limited knowledge of photovoltaics and are no longer able to adapt to traditional inverter sales strategies. In 2015, Jiangsu Goodway opened a photovoltaic academy, which achieved great success in Shandong, Henan, Hebei and other regions. In 2016, Growatt launched the Photovoltaic Heroes Gathering, and in 2017, Sanjing Electric launched the Jingyang Solar Family Photovoltaic Academy. These three companies have popularized photovoltaic knowledge to the grassroots people through lecture tours across the country, allowing more people to know about photovoltaics, participate in photovoltaics, and then install photovoltaics. At the same time, these three companies have gained many loyal fans.