The CSS-OD 107 comprises a 107 kWh battery cabinet paired with a 29.9 kW or 49.9 kW battery inverter and is scalable up to 2.1 MWh per deployment.

Sitting opposite a bus filled with new product, SolarEdge’s CEO Shuki Nir told pv magazine one of the company’s top priorities for the next 12 months is to successfully roll out its Nexis range globally.

“We call it the DC bus,” said Nir, gesturing to a vehicle parked on the SolarEdge booth at The smarter E Europe in Munich, Germany, where exhibition attendees were being offered tours of the company’s recently launched range of modular inverter and battery storage products targeted at the residential market. Nexis products are also integrated with Sera, SolarEdge’s AI powered home energy management system.

The Nexis launch was one of three achievements highlighted by Nir when asked what the big wins were for the business over the previous

12 months. The CEO described the period as one that involved “stabilizing the company financially and building the platform for profitable growth.”

Nir’s other two highlights for the period were the development of SolarEdge’s C&I energy storage business, and the progress it has made developing its forthcoming solid-state transformer (SST) in a bid to capitalize on expected demand from the data center industry.

Residential range

Nexis has seen SolarEdge rethink its residential range, opting to shift from a larger lineup of inverters to one product that installers can sell on the doorstep. Rather than four units of varying power outputs in a range – 3.8 kW, 7.6 kW, 11.2 kW, and 15.4 kW – one hardware unit is now configured via software at install and upgradeable later.

“You call it a smaller range,” said Nir. “I’ll change the term if you don’t mind – a more efficient range.”

Efficiency is the name of the game, and SolarEdge is seeking to position its Nexis brand as a single system managing import and export, charge and discharge, and load shifting for households. The headline claim is that installing Nexis can save a homeowner €5,000 ($5,700) or more, according to Nir, through PV harvesting and round-trip battery efficiency – specifically efficiency at both low and high-power draw.

“The round-trip efficiency of the battery, that is actually the part most people don’t understand well enough,” said Nir. “Usually most of the house is working at a low power rating at night when the battery is on. The lower power rating is actually killing the battery in some of our competitors.

“We optimize for that at low and high power.”

Nir said SolarEdge has invested more in hardware to achieve this, while also deploying software that examines how power is used for better performance.

C&I expansion

SolarEdge has also updated its C&I offer, and the company’s recently launched 107 kWh CCS-OD battery storage system was on display at The smarter E. Here too, SolarEdge has simplified its range of inverters, offering the new energy storage cabinet with 29.9 kW or 49.9 kW battery inverter options.

When it comes to C&I market trends, there are different dynamics on opposite sides of the Atlantic, according to SolarEdge. Nir described the company as one of the major players in the United States with a range that is both compliant with US foreign entity of concern (FEOC) rules, and can be used to secure domestic content tax credits. These attributes have allowed the company to capture 40% to 50% rooftop C&I share, according to the CEO. Good news for the inverter business, but Nir acknowledged the US battery attachment remains “very small … single digits” in the C&I segment – and is largely a new-build market with little retrofit to speak of.

European markets show the opposite trend, according to Nir, who said battery sales are almost entirely upsold to existing installations, with SolarEdge able to supply real fleet data to provide return-on-investment simulations for customers – often able to pitch a five-year payback period.

American made

SolarEdge can comply with US regulations targeting foreign imports of solar tech due to the company’s expanded manufacturing presence in the country. Nir said that 95% of the company’s inverters and optimizers are made at its US facilities in Florida, Texas, and Utah. Batteries have a more international footprint given the more challenging logistics. US-bound batteries are made in Salt Lake City, European-bound batteries are made closer to source through SolarEdge and its regional contract manufacturers. “You cannot fly batteries,” Nir explained. “It doesn’t work for supply chain efficiency.”

Despite the strong manufacturing presence, there are challenges in the US market. Nir noted that US residential financing – including third-party-ownership and tax equity – is an area “we are definitely watching,” adding that difficulties stem from a lack of clarity in the field.

“Some installation companies are facing financial challenges, one of them has declared bankruptcy, and others are feeling it,” he said.

Product pipeline

The next steps for SolarEdge will include a solid-state transformer (SST) product that has been developed with a view to capitalizing on expected demand from AI data centers. This should be a competitive market and SolarEdge was not the only company at The smarter E with an SST product in development, but Nir suggested the company has had a headstart – having first launched its SST development program six years ago, before shelving it for a two-year period.

Development restarted one year ago. “We put the band back together,” said Nir, adding that SolarEdge is aiming for 99% conversion efficiency for its SST compared to 93% to 95% achievable now. Targeted for pilot installations in 2027 ahead of a commercial-ready launch in 2028 – in keeping with chip giant Nvidia’s anticipated timeline for shifting to 800 V DC architecture for data centers –Nir suggested high conversion efficiency will win the day when this market heats up.

“For a 1 GW data center, this 1% is 4 MW. If you can use another 4 MW, you can add more GPUs into the data center that you already built. That results in tens of millions of dollars of extra profit per year,” Nir said. “So for [data center owners] it is not about cost saving, it’s about the revenue opportunity that is otherwise lost.”

There are more new products coming in the C&I segment, too. Nir wouldn’t be drawn on the details, but a product launch in 2026 is anticipated.

“I will not tell you secrets,” he said. “But we will have an interesting C&I product.”

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