Huawei has reportedly withdrawn from the inverter market in the U.S., due to a blockage implemented by the U.S. government on the grounds of national security and information security.
As the world's largest PV inverter supplier with 22% share, Huawei has been bent on foraying into the huge U.S. market after noticing the rapid growth of the nation's PV power industry.
The company, however, has recently bumped into a major blockade for the initiative; 11 Democratic and Republican senators have recently written a joint letter to the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Energy which urged them to ban the use of Huawei inverters. The goal of the ban is to ward off possible hacker attacks on the nation's power-supply networks.
Moreover, on May 17th, the U.S. government issued a decree which required U.S. firms to obtain a permit by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) for the sale of components and parts to Huawei. Lindsay Cherry, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables, noted that the ban has put a damper on the purchase and financing by Huawei in the U.S., which affects its current effort to enter the U.S. market.
In a recent paper, Roth Capital Partners points out that Huawei has also started to scale down its entire U.S. operations, retaining only some technicians and workers for repair and maintenance.
The move by Huawei has already been confirmed by a Huawei spokesman, who refused to comment on the company's decision to withdraw from the U.S. inverter market. Philip Shen, an analyst at Roth Capital, also confirmed Huawei's exit from the market, citing information from two Huawei customers.
In 2018, Huawei had a 4% share on the U.S. inverter market, with that for the company's three-phase inverters hitting 16%. The company's exit will enable firms like SolarEdge and Enphase to consolidate their leading status on the U.S. market.
(Collaborative media: TechNews, first photo courtesy of Flickr/Kārlis Dambrāns CC BY 2.0)