Energy and Solar Semiconductors

What the box buys

Every Inverter, Storage Converter and Charger Buys the Same Chip Stack

Panels and batteries store and make the energy; the semiconductors convert it. A solar inverter turns panel DC into grid AC, a battery storage power conversion system (PCS) does it in both directions, and a DC fast charger runs it the other way. All three buy the same chip stack:

• Power switches: silicon carbide MOSFETs above about 10 kW, gallium nitride in microinverters below it, and silicon IGBTs where price matters more than efficiency. The 1,500-volt utility string inverter and the 800-volt EV inverter use the same SiC device families from the same fabs.
• Control: real-time DSPs run maximum power point tracking and grid synchronization, and isolated gate drivers carry their commands to the high-voltage switches.
• Battery monitors: one cell monitor IC watches each string of 12 to 18 cells in a storage rack.

The switch families are on Power Semiconductors and the shared substrate supply on SiC: Nine Markets, One Wafer.

Who builds inverters

Two Chinese Companies Ship More Than Half of the World's Inverters

The world's inverters come mostly from China. In 2024 shipments reached 589 GWac, up 10%, and Huawei (176 GWac) and Sungrow (148 GWac) shipped 55% of them, holding the top two places for 10 straight years (Wood Mackenzie). In the first half of 2025 the 10 largest makers held 71% of the market; five of them were Chinese (Huawei, Sungrow, Solis, GoodWe and Solplanet), SolarEdge tied for seventh, and Enphase, tenth, was the only US company.

The chips inside often come from the West. Chinese inverter makers buy SiC and IGBT modules from Infineon, STMicroelectronics and onsemi as well as from Chinese suppliers such as StarPower: in August 2026, for example, Infineon announced CoolSiC 1200-volt MOSFETs for residential storage inverters from Fox ESS of Wenzhou, which has installed more than 890,000 inverters. The solar wafers and cells themselves are covered on Solar PV Semiconductors.

US inverters

The US Is Moving Inverter Assembly Home, but Not the Chips

US inverters were imported until now. Of the more than 200 GWac of PV inverters delivered to US projects over the past decade, more than 90% were imported, and China-headquartered makers held nearly 50% of the US market in 2024 and 2025 (Wood Mackenzie). Three changes are moving assembly home:

• Security: in May 2025 Reuters reported undocumented communication devices, including cellular radios, inside some Chinese-made inverters and batteries, which could bypass utility firewalls.
• The FCC: on July 28, 2026 it added foreign-produced power inverters to its Covered List, which blocks new equipment authorizations.
• Tax credits: the 2025 budget law (OBBBA) bars storage projects and 45X manufacturing credits from relying on "prohibited foreign entity" materials, under IRS guidance issued in February 2026.

Makers have announced more than 100 GWac of US inverter and PCS capacity for the end of 2027. The plants assemble inverters; the power chips inside are still mostly made in Europe and Asia, with Wolfspeed's Mohawk Valley fab in New York the main US SiC device source.

• Made in US
• US planned

Battery storage

Battery Storage Is the Fastest-Growing Buyer in the US

Battery storage is the fastest-growing buyer of these chips in the US. Installations reached a record 18.9 GW and 51 GWh in 2025, up 52%, with 16 GW of it utility-scale; Wood Mackenzie expects about 500 GWh more from 2026 to 2031. Its scenarios differ by 52 GW, depending mostly on how strictly the foreign-entity rules are applied.

Each utility-scale system needs a SiC or IGBT power converter and thousands of cell monitor ICs. Western storage racks run mostly on monitors from Analog Devices and Texas Instruments, while Chinese packs from CATL and BYD use domestic monitors; that split is on BMS ICs. The battery cells themselves are covered on ElectronsX.

Texas is where the largest new storage and solar plants are going. Tesla's Megapack plant at Brookshire, west of Houston, started production in September 2026 and is planned for 50 GWh a year of Megapack 3 and Megablock, more than its Lathrop and Shanghai factories at about 40 GWh each; Megablock adds Tesla-made transformers and switchgear. Tesla has also filed for Project Crystal Sun, a $10.1 billion plant in Fort Bend County that would make solar ingots, wafers, cells and modules on one site, with commercial operations from the first quarter of 2029 (Electrek, August 2026). The cell side of that chain is on Solar PV Semiconductors.

Grid and data centers

Solid-State Transformers and AI Data Centers Add to the Same Demand

Two newer loads add to the same chip demand:

• Solid-state transformers: high-frequency SiC converters that replace 60 Hz distribution transformers, using 3,300-volt and higher SiC devices; early units come from ABB, GE, Siemens and Delta.
• AI data centers: 800-volt DC power for GPU racks and on-site battery storage put SiC and GaN between the grid and the processors; that chain is on AI Data Center.

Solar, storage, chargers, transformers and EVs all draw on one SiC substrate supply, which China's suppliers turned from shortage to glut; the prices are on SiC Substrates.

Related coverage

Related Coverage

• Power Semiconductors
• SiC: Nine Markets, One Wafer
• SiC and GaN Power Modules
• BMS ICs
• Solar PV Semiconductors
• SiC Power Fabs
• AI Data Center