TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - May 10, 2012) - Sustainable Energy Technologies ("Sustainable Energy" or the "Company"), (TSX VENTURE:STG) a provider of high performance smart grid inverters has provided an update on recent developments, growth strategy and outlook. The update is available on the Company's website (www.sustainableenergy.com) under Investors/Investor Information.
Highlights:
Sustainable Energy is executing on its' strategy to distribute its solar inverters through partnerships where (i) the Company's technology advantage levers the value of its' partner's technology; or (ii) the Company's technology levers the partner's marketing strategy - such as for pre-assembled systems or for building integrated solar.
The Company is currently shipping more than 1MW per month of PARALEX inverters. Based on current customer forecasts, the Company sees this volume doubling in the next quarter to just under 3 MW per month, which will take the Company to profitability. Current customer demand pipelines continue to grow; and the Company expects production to increase to an average 4MW per month in the last calendar quarter driving further growth through 2013.
Sustainable Energy is continuing to meet its manufactured cost targets. The PARALEX product is profitable, with 25% average margins in comparatively low volumes, and the Company is embarked on a well-defined path to cut a further 30% from manufactured cost by the beginning of 2013.
The Company has also completed the restructuring of its operations and has cut an additional 46% from operating costs at the same time as demand was recovering and product sales were increasing.
Recent Developments: |
- On April 25, 2012, the Company's largest customer, tenKsolar, announced a global strategic partnership with Korea's Hanwha Group for tenKsolar's high efficiency RAISWAVE solar PV system for commercial and institutional rooftops. The partnership creates a global footprint for the PARALEX enabled RAISWAVE system, which delivers up to 60% more energy per square foot. Hanwha has already begun marketing the RAISWAVE system in Japan with tenKsolar. According to last month's PV Magazine, tenKsolar is projecting 100 - 150 MW in production capacity during 2013.
- On April 18, 2012, Sustainable Energy announced a joint venture with a leading supplier of prefabricated housing components to create ProFab Solar - Ontario's first factory assembled solar PV system. The ProFab system, which is enabled by the PARALEX "parallel" architecture, eliminates 90% of installation labor and de-risks the installation process. In less than a month since the launch, the Company has been bidding substantial volumes of new business.
According to a recently released McKinsey& Company report (Solar Power: Darkest Before Dawn, April 2012), the industry will move towards modularization, preassembly and standardization to bring down balance of system costs. Conventional inverter technologies have been a barrier to this process due to the need for site specific custom design to accommodate long strings of panels and to overcome the vulnerability of total system performance to variable shading.
Outlook
"We have successfully restructured our operations and positioned our products for early profitability based on a very focused strategy of expanding the opportunities that we have in front of us," said Michael Carten, CEO of Sustainable Energy.
"Over the longer term, we will explore opportunities in other market segments where our technology advantages provide the opportunity for strategic relationships. One of these segments is the emerging demand for energy storage functionality. According to IMS Research (The Future Development of the PV Inverter Market, February 2 2012) nearly 25% of customers expect most of their PV systems to use storage in 2 years' time. Early market feedback is that the current PARALEX inverter platform delivers materially higher efficiencies than any other technology in sight at a much lower cost."
About Sustainable Energy:
Sustainable Energy (www.SustainableEnergy.com) is a Canadian power electronics company which supplies Canada, the U.S. and Europe. The Company's patented inverter technologies are a breakthrough in power inverter design and functionality for all forms of distributed generation storage and smart grid applications. Approximately 20 MW of 1st and 2nd generation products have been installed in 7 different countries.
Forward Looking Information
The reader is advised that some of the information herein may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning assigned by National Instruments 51-102 and other relevant securities legislation. In particular, we include: statements concerning the potential for growth solar PV system performance; statements concerning tenKsolar's forecasted production capacity, statements concerning cost savings from using the ProFab Solar products; statements concerning the performance advantages of our energy storage inverter; statements concerning the size of the energy storage inverter market; and statements concerning demand for products;
Forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and involves a number of risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements, or future events or developments, to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information, which speaks only as of the date hereof.
Readers are also directed to the Risk Factors section of the Company's current Annual Information Form which may be found on its website or at www.sedar.com The Company does not undertake any obligation to release publicly any revisions to forward-looking information contained herein to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Contact Information:
Michael Carten
Chief Executive Officer
+1.403.630.9544
Michael.Carten@SustainableEnergy.com