“We are one of the four leading global providers of protection for large solar power plants. Our products have European and American quality certificates. We are not only product suppliers, we also advise customers in the design of solutions. Our products protect large solar power plants with rated power up to one or more megawatts, as well as the largest ones, where the power exceeds tens of megawatts. They are installed in power plants around the world, located from California to Japan. We also have products and standard solutions for small solar power plants that are placed on the roofs of houses,” says Tomaž Berginc, general manager of ETI Elektroelement from Izlake.
ETI is best known as one of the world’s leading manufacturers of fuses and circuit breakers. They are also the largest European manufacturer of low-voltage fuses, with a market share of 25% to 27% in Europe. They have more than four thousand different customers, and by selling to the largest, they generate 7% of all revenue. They market the products under their own brand and in their own marketing network. They have 1,125 employees in Izlake, the entire ETI group, which also has a factory in Poland, a smaller plant in Bosnia and a whole range of sales companies, has more than 1,600 employees.
Fast development and 15 years of experience with solar power plants
15 years ago, the range of products related to the control and protection of electric current was extended to the field of solar power plants. “This year, we will use them to generate just under 10% of all sales revenue of the ETI Group. With them, we achieve higher margins than our average margins,” says Tomaž Berginc.
“We have been present in the market of solar power plants practically since the beginning. During this 15-year period, quite a lot of technologies have changed, which requires us to develop very quickly. We are among the leading providers on the market, we have a global market share of around 20% for large solar power plants, we cannot be precise because there are no official statistics. We master both technologies that are established in the market so that our protection products are installed both in central PV inverters and so-called smart string inverters. Our customers are the world’s largest manufacturers of converters, such as German SMA, Spanish Power Electrics and Ingeteam, Japanese TIMEIC (founded by Toshiba and Mitsubishi)…” explains Franc Jenko, head of system integration at ETI.
Source: Mateja Bertoncelj, Finance. The complete article in Slovene is available HERE.