IHS Markit: PV inverter replacement market to grow to 8.7GW in 2020

Market research firm IHS Markit believes that the PV inverter replacement market will grow by about 40% in 2020, creating an additional 8.7GW of demand outside of new projects worldwide.

The company’s latest analysis shows that Germany’s residential market was an early adopter of inverters, followed by Spain, Italy and the UK’s residential, commercial and industrial, and utility sectors, making Europe the largest PV inverter replacement market.

Generally speaking, the expected life of string inverters used in the early European residential market is 5-10 years, so they account for a large proportion of the component replacement market.

The central inverter replacement market could become a large megawatt market due to the large utility-scale projects in Europe. Countries can choose to use advanced central inverters with energy storage or the latest string inverters.

According to information released by IHS Markit, the countries with the largest demand for inverter replacement are Germany, Italy and Spain. These three countries account for more than 70% of the total replacement demand in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Driven by China, Asia is said to have become the second largest region for inverter replacement.

Demand is also expected to grow in Japan, which reportedly has the largest number of residential projects older than five years.

Replacement demand in the Americas is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 130% through 2023, accounting for 12% of global replacement demand.

Currently, few listed PV inverter manufacturers provide detailed data on replacement sales in their financial statements.