Highlights from our 15th Intel Report, part 2: equipment consolidation decreases slightly

Tracking trends in the equipment landscape is crucial to understanding the solar industry as a whole, especially as we continue to see the impacts of supply chain constraints and market shifts. Our Solar Marketplace Intel Report (download here ) remains a great resource for better understanding these trends, and today I’ll explain how they’ve shifted in our most recent iteration of this report.

As supply chain issues persisted into 2022, installers on the EnergySage Marketplace diversified their equipment offerings to meet growing demand for solar installations. For instance, for the first time since we began tracking storage data in 2020, five different storage brands held at least 5% marketplace share. At the same time, though, installers continue to demonstrate brand loyalty, with the majority offering just one or two equipment brands.

Battery storage marketplace diversifies

• The storage marketplace opened up during the first half of 2022. Enphase remained the most quoted storage option on the EnergySage Marketplace at 45% of all storage quotes. Cumulatively, Enphase and Tesla encompassed 70% of the total storage marketplace.?
• Generac gained the most traction in H2 2022, growing Marketplace share by 7 percentage points from H2 2021. SolarEdge also grew substantially, jumping from <1% marketplace share in H2 2021 to 5% in H1 2022, placing it in the top five most quoted storage brands on EnergySage.?

Marketplace share shifts among solar panel and inverter brands

• Consolidation in the solar panel Marketplace decreased slightly, likely due in part to the continued impacts of supply chain disruptions requiring installers to select additional brands based on equipment availability; however, quoted panel brands continue to be a crowded field on the EnergySage Marketplace, with five different brands encompassing almost 80% marketplace share.?
• REC edged out Panasonic as the most quoted panel brand in the Marketplace. And while REC and Q CELLS both gained marketplace share, the total Marketplace share of the top three brands –?REC, Panasonic, and Q CELLS – dropped 7 percentage points from H2 2021 to H1 2022.?

• The most quoted inverter brand on the EnergySage Marketplace – Enphase Energy – remained the same from H2 2021 to H1 2022. While Enphase lost 4 percentage points of its total Marketplace share, SunPower grew their share by 3 percentage points. SolarEdge also increased its Marketplace share by 2 percentage points.?
• The range of quoted inverter brands remains much narrower than that of panels, with Enphase, SolarEdge and SunPower making up 95% of total Marketplace share, and Enphase alone encompassing over 50% of all quotes.

Vast majority of installers still only offer one or two equipment brands

• Though supply chain constraints likely increased the diversity in equipment offerings on the Marketplace, installers remained consistent in their inverter brand loyalty, with 57% of installers offering just one or two solar panel brands, 87% offering one or two inverter brands.
• The number of installers offering five or more panel brands continues to decrease steadily each half year, dropping from 14% in H2 2021 to 11% in H1 2022.

Thanks for reading. Part 3, and the final of this series, will dive into the growing consumer interest in storage. To get our new report, go to?energysage.com/data ?and download for free.