The Business Year Special Report
Kemal Balaban, Senior Account Manager, Huawei Technologies
Huawei Technologies is using smart management technologies to create fully digitalized Smart PV Solutions for residential, commercial, and utility segments.
• Interview
How has Huawei’s PV supply chain to Turkey been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic?
As a company that provides high-tech products as well as Smart PV Inverters through a global supply chain network, Huawei’s operations have faced some extraordinary situations. We have been using alternative transportation methods due to restrictions and prohibitions in international transportation. Huawei’s supply chain logistics team collaborates with local logistics associations to improve epidemic prevention measures, so as to control the spread without affecting commercial transactions. Our effective management allowed products to be delivered to Turkey with a minimum delay.
Can you outline the scope of Huawei’s past and future work in Turkey’s solar sector?
First of all, I would like to emphasize local power of Huawei in Turkey. Our office in Turkey was established in 2002. In these 18 years, Huawei has committed to several long-term investments in Turkey. We have an R&D center, training center, open lab, and a local production facility for telecommunication products. Huawei has more than 1,300 employees in Turkey with around 450 engineers in the R&D department. Following the rise of the solar sector in Turkey, Huawei’s Solar Department was established in 2014. Despite the fact that Huawei entered the solar energy market late in Turkey, great achievements have been accomplished so far. In the residential, commercial, and utility segments, Huawei has sold more than 2GW of power capacity in Turkey. Turkey is an important hub for Huawei’s Smart PV Business—our department is responsible for nine different countries including Turkey and we have local offices in Istanbul, Ankara, and Kazakhstan. We are working hard to introduce new generation string inverters with smart management technologies to create fully digitalized Smart PV Solutions for residential, commercial, and utility segments.
From a cost and technology perspective, how competitive are Huawei’s FusionSolar Smart PV products?
In the intelligent era, innovation has become a core competency among leading enterprises. According to IHS Markit, Huawei has been ranked number one in global PV inverter shipments for five consecutive years. Huawei attributes its successes to customer-oriented innovations that simplify complex problems through fully digital technologies in its electronics, chips, computing, and AI. Through innovation, Huawei Smart PV Solution has achieved the lowest levelized cost of energy. Huawei adopts intelligent trackers with AI algorithms to maximize energy yields by integrating tracker control, power supply, and communication. Together with AI technology applied to trackers with multi maximum power point tracking (MPPT) string inverters using high-end algorithms, it is possible to assess the behavior of each string, including the I-V curve. This can effectively prevent technical issues, improve O&M efficiency, and reduce O&M costs. While AI technology will be gradually integrated into PV solutions, Huawei is already driving this intelligence forward with its extensive Smart I-V Curve Diagnosis, which can carry out online analysis of entire strings. Huawei’s smart string inverters provide high efficiency, high availability, and multiple MPPTs to bring in higher energy yields. Without vulnerable parts or fuses, string inverters can reduce the initial investment and operating expenses while simultaneously increasing PV system reliability. With all our high-tech innovations, balance of system costs can be reduced by 4.5 cents per watt.
What are Huawei’s objectives in Turkey’s solar sector over the next 12 months?
The vision of Huawei is to bring digital to every person, home, and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world. We replicate this vision for our inverter sector and we will continually support our valuable partners and customers in Turkey for all segments including residential, commercial, industrial, and utility. We believe that Turkey will see a ramp up in commercial and residential business over the next year. In order to reach and handle all customers, we will increase our marketing and training activities with our distributors. For the utility segment, we are waiting to hear the results of the mini YEKA tenders next year. Our aim is to focus our products and solutions on lowering the levelized cost of energy.