This Research Note explores SolarEdge Technologies, a NASDAQ-listed firm headquartered in Israel with $3 billion in revenues, providing intelligent inverters for photovoltaic systems, primarily in the smart home sector.

We examine recent acquisitions, funding, and product launches that augment the company’s software and product portfolio addressing real estate owners and operators in the commercial, industrial, and multi-dwelling sectors. This article is based on SolarEdge investor presentations, 2023 10K Annual Report, and associated press releases.

SolarEdge Acquisition of Wevo Energy

In April 2024, SolarEdge Technologies announced the completion of the acquisition of the entire share capital of Wevo Energy Ltd.

Founded in 2021, Wevo is an Israeli software startup specializing in EV charging optimization and management for sites with large quantities of EV chargers such as apartment buildings, workplace carparks, and public charging locations. SolarEdge invested in their seed funding round in June 2023. LinkedIn reports 26 employees.

Wevo’s software is designed to be vendor-agnostic and supports open protocols, enabling multi-user pricing and billing, tiered prioritization of charging schedules, predictive load management, and a range of additional services. To date, Wevo has electrified many thousands of parking spaces across North America, Europe and the Middle East.

Wevo is already integrated with SolarEdge’s EV chargers, solar inverters and meters, for a holistic real-time view of solar production, grid consumption and EV charging.

In June 2023, SolarEdge Technologies announced the launch of a solar-attached Electric Vehicle (EV) management solution for the Commercial and Industrial (C&I) segment. The new software-based solution, powered by technology developed by Wevo Energy, manages and optimizes the EV charging process for sites that require dynamic load management and have large quantities of EVs.

Built on AI-based predictive algorithms, the solution incorporates real-time data analytics and considers solar production, dynamic electricity prices and tiered charging schedules. By integrating with SolarEdge’s energy management system, this new offering orchestrates and optimizes interactions between facility solar generation, stationary battery storage and large-scale EV charging, taking into account grid and infrastructure limitations.

The Wevo solution will also be part of the SolarEdge ONE energy optimization system for the Commercial and Industrial (C&I) segment, designed to offer SolarEdge customers a single energy optimization solution that orchestrates and integrates between on-site solar generation, battery storage and large-scale EV charging.

Investment and Partnership with AMPEERS Energy

In March 2024, SolarEdge announced it intended to invest in and partner with AMPEERS ENERGY, a German-based software start up that designs and operates solutions for decarbonizing entire portfolios of multi-dwelling buildings and serves a broad spectrum of real estate companies across Germany and Austria.

By pairing SolarEdge’s solar and smart energy portfolio with the AMPEERS platform, this partnership is designed to combine technology, software, and services to create a new all-inclusive photovoltaic tenant electricity solution.

The offering is expected to provide real estate companies with a holistic solution for a climate-neutral building portfolio, which includes the planning, implementation and financing options for solar and storage generation, tenant electricity billing solutions, EV charging infrastructure and new heating technologies. The solution is designed to provide landlords and tenants with the economic benefits of optimized on-site solar generation and enable a faster and simpler installation of photovoltaic and tenant electricity solutions in real estate portfolios.

SolarEdge’s investment and partnering with AMPEERS is a strategic step that aims to capitalize on legislative changes in tenant electricity models in Germany and can provide a new avenue to address the multi-dwelling market across Europe.

Acquisition of Hark Systems

In January 2023, SolarEdge entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the entire share capital of Hark Systems Ltd. Founded in 2016 and based in Leeds UK, Hark offers a Software as a Service (SaaS) Internet of Things (IoT) platform that allows enterprises and asset operators to connect, analyze and optimize industrial assets and energy in their commercial sites.

Hark’s technology enables rapid deployment and commissioning across multiple sites. Hark’s customer base is comprised of diverse industries, including some of the largest supermarket chains in the UK. The company reported 20 employees, in its UK company accounts, year ending 28 February 2023.

The acquisition of Hark is expected to enable SolarEdge to offer its commercial and industrial (C&I) customers expanded capabilities in energy management and connectivity, including identification of potential energy savings, detection of anomalies in assets’ energy consumption, and optimization of energy usage and carbon emissions through load orchestration and storage control.

According to SolarEdge’s 2023 10K Report, on April 6, 2023, the company completed the acquisition of all outstanding shares of Hark Systems Ltd. for approximately $18,346 in cash, out of which $1,245 held by the company for a period of one year.

Commercial & Industrial Deployments

As of Q4 2023, over 350,000 commercial facilities have SolarEdge technology on their rooftops, of which over 50% are Fortune 100 companies. 

SolarEdge is engaged in acquiring and funding technology startups to augment its solar energy management and optimization software and portfolio for its commercial and industrial customers.

This article was written by Daphne Tomlinson, Senior Research Associate at Memoori.