Company Profile

In November 2014, SolarBridge Technologies was aquired by SunPower Corporation, another SBIR-involved company. Formerly known as SmartSpark Energy Systems, SolarBridge Technologies, was established to to commercialize power electronics technologies created at the University of Illinois. The firm has leveraged its diverse IP base to create multiple product lines. The revised strategy is to focus exclusively on microinverter and monitoring solutions for PV solar installations. Aggressively taking the company to the next level, SolarBridge Technologies hired a new executive team, opened a new corporate headquarters in Austin, Texas, and has substantially scaled up its engineering team to accelerate product development. Beta testing of the new SolarBridge microinverter and information module is now underway. The new SolarBridge identity is a reflection of the company’s mission to reduce the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) for solar installations by dramatically improving reliability, increasing energy production and simplifying installation. The company’s patented microinverter architecture enables unprecedented levels of reliability by eliminating the most failure prone components, like electrolytic capacitors and optoisolators, which are used in central inverters and competitive microinverters. The high reliability of the SolarBridge Microinverter enables the development of a true ACPV solution, where the SolarBridge Microinverter is integrated to the back of a PV module. The ultimate destination of the PV inverter market — a highly reliable ACPV solution, backed by a 25 year warranty, that dramatically reduces installation costs and maximizes energy production — is now a reality. Solar markets that are not well served will now have a practical solution. SolarBridge Technologies is focused on creating microinverter and monitoring solutions for home and small commercial solar power installations. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with an R&D facility in Champaign, Illinois. SolarBridge Technologies began operations in 2004 in Champaign, Illinois, under the name SmartSpark Energy Systems. The SolarBridge Microinverter and Monitoring System was designed from the ground up, utilizing patented technologies from the University of Illinois to address PV inverter reliability issues, which historically has been the biggest failure point of solar installations. The SolarBridge Microinverter and Monitoring System facilitates electrical conversion and control between solar modules and the electrica